588 FLORA OF TEXAS. 



S. MiCHAUXii. Culms (0-12' high) smooth; leaves 

 linear, and, like tlie sheaths, hairy; clusters ^i!>, nodding; 

 scales bristle-awned; nut globose-3-angled, very minute, 

 pointed, smooth, not pitted at the base. (S. interrupta, 

 Michx., not of Richard.) Low pine-barrens. July and 

 August. 



CAREX, L. Sedge. 



Flowers monoecious, rarely dioecious, spiked ; sterile and 

 fertile flowers in the same spike (androgynous), ov in sepa- 

 rate spikes; scales imbricated in few-many rows; sta- 

 mens 2-3; style 2-3-cleft, exserted from a sac {lyerigyniiim) 

 which incloses the ovary and the lenticular biconvex or 

 3-angled nut. — Perennials, with grass-like leaves', spikes 

 from the axils of scale-like or leaf like bracts, simple or 

 compound. 



§ ViGNEA. Stigmas two ; nut lenticular, or more or less compressed. 

 * Spikes with the upper flowers sterile, the lower fertile. 

 t Spikes indefinite, disposed in a close panicle, 

 tt Perigynia shrot-stalked, truncate at the base. 



C. CRUS-coRvr, Shuttleworth. Panicle very large, the 

 lower branches long and distinct, tne upper short and 

 crowded; perigynia plano-convex, ovate, strongly nerved, 

 dilated at the base, tapering into a long and slender rough- 

 edged deeply 2-cleft beak, Ihrice the length of the ovate- 

 mucronate scale. River swamps. May. Culms thick and 

 spongy, sharp-angled, and, like the broad (^ -f ' wide) 

 leaves, glancDus ; panicle 4-9' long, oblong or spike-like ; 

 psrigynia widely spreading, brown at maturity. 



C. MuHLEXBERGii, Schk. Spikcs 5-8, ovoid, approxi- 

 mate, or crowded in an oblong head; perigynia round- 

 ovate, plano-convex, strongly nerved, with a short and 

 broad rough-edged 2-cleft beak, barely longer than the 

 ovate short-pointed scale. Dry sterile soil. Culms 12'-18' 



