292 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
Bromus mollis is also unwholesome ; and Festuca quadradentata is 
said to be poisonous. Molinia varia is also injurious to cattle. The 
most esteemed pasture grasses are Lolium perenne, Phleum and 
Festuca pratensis, Cynosurus cristatus, with several species of Poa 
and Dwarf Festuca, to which the fragrance of the sweet Vernal Grass 
(Anoxanthum) add their fine aroma. 
The Cyperace® (Sedges) are Grass-like herbs, of solid angular 
stems, sometimes terminating at the base in corms or tubers, with 
narrow, tapering leaves wrapping round the stem, but without the 
slitting sheath. The flowers are imbricated solitary bracts, without 
calyx, the lowermost of which are often empty, very rarely enclosing 
other opposite bracts at right angles with the first, called glomm 
There is no diaphragm at the articulations; the seed has its embry, 
lying in the base of the albumen, within which its cotyledonous 
extremity is enclosed. 
The Sedges are found in ditches, marshes, and running streams, 
heaths and forests, on the sands of the seashore, and on the tops of 
mountains. In Lapland, according to Humboldt, they are equal 
to grasses in number; but from the temperate zone to the equator 
the proportion decreases. As we approach the equatorial regions : 
the character of the order changes—Carex Scirpus and Schernms 
give place to the Cyperacee and other analogous genera. On the 
banks of the Nile, and in many parts of Arabia, the Papyris 
antiquorum grows, of which boats, paper, and ropes are made ; am 
P. corymbasis is equally useful in India, where it is manufactur 
into matting for rooms; while Cyperus textilis makes @ kind of | 
rope much used in the East. the | 
Of the remaining orders constituting glumaceous plants bi . 
Desvavx1acem consist of genera of small tuft-like mee a 
tinguished from the Sedges by their ovaries, which are varia e : : 
number and distinct from each other, ranged round @ were a 
axis, as in the Ranunculus. They are insignificant amgicicie a6 
South Sea Islands and Australia. anh 
The Resrtacea are herbaceous under shrubs, with naked a 
or protected by slit sheaths, flowers in spikes, separated Py 7 
and generally unisexual. They are distinguishable by ge a 
opposite to the umbilicus, by their thin stamens placed opp’ 
