476 THE RUSH FAMILY. [Luzula. — 
In dry pastures, woods, and heaths, throughout the northern hemi- 
sphere without the tropics, and in some parts of the southern hemi- 
sphere. Abundant in Britain. Fl. spring. In some specimens, JZ. 
erecta, Desv. (multiflora, Lej.), the peduncles are so shortened as to give 
the inflorescence the appearance of that of Z. spicata, but the outer 
clusters are never quite sessile, and the perianth is always much larger ~ 
than in ZL. spicata. 
5. L. spicata, DC. (fig. 1081). Spiked W.—Rather smaller than ZL. 
campestris, and the flowers considerably smaller (about ? line long), 
in dense clusters, all sessile, forming an ovoid or oblong terminal spike, 
4 to near 1 inch long, and more or less drooping, the lowest 1 or 2 
clusters often a little apart from the others, but always sessile within 
a short leafy bract. . 
An alpine species, common in northern and Arctic Europe, Asia, and 
America, and in the high mountain-ranges of central and southern 
Europe and Asia. Abundant in Scotland, very local in northern England 
and North Wales, and unknown in Ireland. Fl. summer. 
LXXXVII. ERIOCAULEA. THE ERIOCAULON FAMILY. 
Herbs, differing from Juncacee in their minute unisexal 
flowers, in involucrate heads, membranous perianth, with the 
inner segments inserted in a tube or in the female flower re- 
placed by a pencil of hairs, and in their ovules and seeds always . 
solitary in each cell of the ovary or capsule, and suspended 
from the top, not erect from the base as in Luzula. 
An Order, containing several genera and many species, for the most 
part South American. In former editions of this work it was regarded 
as included under Restiacee. 
I. ERICCAULON. ERIOCAULON. 
Aquatic or marsh plants, with tufted leaves. Peduncles leafless, 
with a terminal globular head of minute flowers; the central ones 
chiefly males, the outer ones chiefly females ; all intermixed with small 
bracts, of which the outer ones are rather larger, forming an involucre 
round the head. Perianth very delicate, of 4 or 6 segments, the 2 or 3 
inner ones in the males united to near the summit. Stamens in the 
males as many or half as many as the perianth-segments. Capsule in 
the females 2- or 3-lobed, and 2- or 38-celled. Style single, with 2 or 3 
stigmas. 
A large genus, widely distributed over the globe, numerous in South 
America, and extending over that continent to the Arctic Circle, 
general in tropical Asia, Africa, and Australia, but wholly wanting in 
Russian Asia and Hurope, with the exception of the single British 
station. 
1. E. septangulare, With. (fig. 1082). Jointed E.—The slender 
rootstock creeps in the mud under water, emitting numerous white, 
jointed fibres, and tufts of linear, very pointed, soft and pellucid 
