Rhynchospora.] cyperace^. 541 



wards, which are partly obtuse and partly spinulose, with incurved poiuts, capable 

 of cutting severely if handled incautiously: leaves on the culm bract-like, alter- 

 nate, with short tight sheaths. Ligule none, unless the pale, shining, adnate and 

 tapering, membranous lining of the leaf be considered as such. Culms erect, 

 leafy, hollow, jointed, faintly striated, smooth and shining, from 3 to 5 or 6 (some- 

 times, it is said, 8 or 1 0) feet high, often ^ an inch in diameter at the base, rounded 

 below, obscurely angular above, and alternately grooved by the conlact of the 

 appressed stalks of the flowering branches, ramoso-paniculate for a great portion 

 of their length. Spikelets lanceolate, 2 or 3 lines in length, pale fuscous, capi- 

 tato-conglomerate, in terminal and axillary corymbosely paniculate clusters, the 

 lateral clusters solitary or geminate, each on a long, much-compressed or semite- 

 rete, upright and naked stalk, having a short, sheathing, obtuse, bifid and scariose 

 hract at its base, concealed by the sheaths of the superior bases of the culm, the 

 whole together constituting a long, interrupted, leafy punicle, a good deal resem- 

 bling that of some large species of Junous, but vastly superior in size, often 2-^ 

 feet in length ; in the centre of each terminal cluster or partial corymb is com- 

 monly a sessile or very shortly stalked head of spikelets; branches of the panicle 

 very unequal, smooth, compressed and partly channelled, the secondary and minor 

 with scariose and taper-pointed bracts at their origin. Florets mostly 2 (rarely 3) 

 in each spikelet, one of them only usually perfected. Glumes 6,* closely imbri- 

 cated, chaffy, of a uniform pale brown, without scariose margins, ovate, more or 

 less acute or rounded and obtuse, entire or slightly emarginate, keeled, scarcely 

 ribbed, the 3 lower and outer much the shortest and empty. Stamens 2, some- 

 times, it ii said, 3, placed close under the germen on each side, not all protruding;f 

 anthers large, linear-elliptical, with rather long pellucid points ; filaments stout. 

 Germen ovato-lanceolate, continuous with and gradually tapering into the styles, 

 without any apparent enlargement or articulation whatever. Sti/les 2 (sometimes 

 3?), often cleft, cohering together in their lower half, their summits plumoso- 

 pubescent, spreading and recurved. Fruit drupaceous, about f th of an inch long, 

 ovato-acuminate, olive-brown, smooth and polished, its exterior coat (putamen) 

 thin and bony, the interior thicker, fleshy or spongy, greenish. Nut osseous, 

 ovato-globose, subapiculate, rough and blackish, with a white fleshy kernel. 



The dissections of the florets in E. B. are very faulty, neither expressing the 

 apiculi of the anthers nor the elongated form of the germen, which is there drawn 

 as articulated with the style by an enlarged base to the latter ; the filaments, too, 

 are represented as slender and tapering. 



Cladium Mariscus is said to grow in the West Indies, and it is found in Bri- 

 tain as far North as Sutherland, and in Sweden in the Island of Gothland. I 

 have gathered it near Killarney, in Ireland ; so that its range in all directions is 

 very extensive. 



III. Rhtnchospoea, Valil. Beak-rush. 



" Spikelets few-flowered. Glumes 6 — 7, imbricated on all sides, 

 the lower ones smaller, empty. Hypogynous bristles several, 

 included, toothed. Style subulate, bifid, dilated at the base. 

 Achene crowned with the persistent, more or less reticulated, 

 dilated base of the style." — Br. Fl. 



1. R. alba, Vahl. White Beak-rush. " Spikelets in a compact 

 corymb as long as the outer bracteas, leaves narrow-linear, base 



* Mertens and Koch (Deutschl. Ft. i. s. 360) assign 6 as the constant number 

 of the glumes, of which the 3 outermost are short, broad and empty, the 2 supe- 

 rior and inner floriferous and oblong, the 6Lh mostly imperfect. 



f In the greater number of the florets impregnation seems to take place within 

 the glumes, the shortness of the filaments not admitting of the anthers pro- 

 truding. 



