502 



fewer (2 or 1) or more (4, 6, 8, or 12) : filaments elongated 

 after fecmidation, sometimes very long, persistent : anthers 2- 

 celled, undivided at the top, acute or mucronate, fixed by the 

 base, linear: ovary compressed, usually triangular, l-celled: 

 ovule straight, inverted, adnate to a cord its whole length : 

 styles 3, seldom 2, more or less connate below : fruit 1-seeded, 

 indehiscent, lenticular, plano-convex, triangular, cylindric or 

 globose, smooth, tubercled, wriiikled or striated: pericarp 

 membranaceous, crustaceous or bony: seed erect: albumen 

 conformable to the seed : embryo enclosed in the base of the 

 albumen: radicle looking towards the hilum : plumula incon- 

 spicuous. — Roots fibrous: stem" (culm) triaHgular, seldom 

 terete or many-angled, for the most part without, knots, often 

 umbellately branched at the top : leaves grassy, sheathing at 

 the base, sometimes reduced to a sheath : sheaths entii-e, some- 

 times cleft by age: spikes capitate or spicately congested, 

 seldom solitary. 



SECT. I. CYVEttEJE. 



GENUS I. CTPERTJS. 



Vriandria KKono^ynia. Sex: Si/st: 



Gen. Chae. Spikes many-flowered : scales distichously imbri- 

 cated, all flower-'bearing, equal, sometimes some of the lower ones 

 smaller, empty : bristles or scales none : stamens 3, seldom 1 — 2 : 

 style 3, seldom 2-cleft, deciduous : acienium triangular or seldom 

 compressed, often mucronated with tlie persistent base of the style. 

 — Culms foliate, seldom leafless : leaves grassy, usually flat : spikes 

 fascicled, capitate or umbellate, umbels single, compound or supra- 

 decompound. 



(1) C. ptmciAiTJS. (RoxLj 



Ident. Eoxb. flor. Ind. I. p. 193.— Kunth En. pi. II. p. 4. 



Syn. C. pulvinatus, N. ah. E. et. Mey. in Wight Contrib. Bot. 

 J), 74 (partly). 



Spec. Chah. Culms triangular, glabrous, leafy at the base : 

 leaves equalling the culm, narrow, flat, thorny, .scabrous towards 

 the top : umbel 4 — 5-rayed, rays unequal, 4 — 9-spiked at the top : 

 involucre 3-leaved, very long: spikes digitately fascicled, much 

 spreading, oblong, compressed, 14— 21 -flowered : scales roundish- 



