The Book of Grasses 



On dry hillsides and in sterile soil we often notice a small, 

 slender plant bearing globose flowering-heads of dull greenish 



15 1 



slender Cyperus 

 Cyperus filkulmis 



brown. This is the Slen- 

 der Cyperus {Cyperus 

 filkulmis) whose wiry 

 stems rise from hard, 

 roundish corms, or tubers. 

 The Slender Cyperus is common throughout 

 the country, and although under different 

 conditions of soil and climate the plants 

 vary in size and in the number of flowering- 

 heads the stems are seldom more than fif- 

 teen inches in height. 



POND SEDGE. (Dulichium) 



The Pond Sedge (Dulichium arundi- 

 naceum) is a plant that bears little resem- 

 blance to other members of the large family 

 of Cyperaceae, and the casual observer who 

 assumed the leafy stems to belong to some 

 flowering plant of a different order might 

 easily be pardoned. The hollow, jointed 

 stems, one to three feet tall, are very leafy, 

 but the three-ranked leaves are short, being 

 one to four inches long, and are not 

 sedge-like in appearance. The flowers 

 are borne with the leaves along the stem 

 and are in spikes which are composed of 

 narrow, green spikelets, one half to one 

 inch long. 



This plant, the only species of the 

 genus, is common from Nova Scotia to 

 Florida, and during midsummer and later 

 it is frequently seen by the borders of 

 ponds and streams where it grows with 

 the yellow loosestrife and other plants 

 of the marshes. 

 270 



