Eviocaulon. ] LXXXVIT. ERIOCAULE. 477 
leaves, 1 to 3 inches long. Peduncles from a couple of inches to above 
a foot high, enclosed at the base in a long sheath. Flower-heads 2 
to 4 lines diameter, with very numerous minute flowers. Bracts and 
perianths of a leaden colour, tipped with a few minute chaff-like hairs. 
Perianth-segments 4, with a minute black gland on the 2 inner ones. 
Stamens in the males 4. Stigmas and lobes of the ovary in the 
females 2. 
A North American species, found in lakes of the isles of Skye, Coll, a 
few of the neighbouring Hebrides, and the west coast of Ireland, but 
not elsewhere in Europe. Fl. August. 
LXXXVITI. CYPERACEZ. THE SEDGE FAMILY. 
Herbs, resembling in aspect Juncacew, or more frequently 
Graminee, but usually stiffer than the latter, with solid 
[usually 3-angled] stems, and the sheaths of the leaves closed 
all round. Flowers in little green or brown spikes, called 
spikelets, which are either solitary and terminal or several in a 
terminal (or apparently lateral), simple or compound cluster, 
spike, umbel, or panicle. Each spikelet is placed in the axil of 
a scale-like or leafy owter bract, and consists of several scale- 
like, imbricated bracts, called glumes, each containing in its axil 
one sessile flower. Perianth either none or replaced by a few 
bristles or minute scales. Stamens 3 or rarely 2. Ovary (in 
the same or in a distinct glume) simple, 1-celled, the style more 
or less deeply divided into 2 or 3 branches or linear stigmas. 
Fruit a small, seed-like nut, flattened when the style is 2-cleft, 
triangular when it is 3-cleft, containing a single seed. 
A large family, abundantly distributed all over the globe, but more 
especially in moist situations or on the edges of waters. It is inter- 
mediate as it were between Restiacew and Graminee, distinguished from 
the former by the absence of any regular perianth, from Graminee 
generally by the want of an inner scale or palea between the flower and 
the axis of the spikelets; by the simple, not feathery, branches of the 
style ; besides that in most cases the two families are readily known by 
the sheath of the leaves closed round the triangular stem in Cyperacee, slit 
open on the side opposite to the blade in Graminec. The glumes are also 
most frequently brown in the former, green or purplish in the latter. 
Flowers unisexual, the stamens and ovaries within separate 
glumes, either in the same or in separate spikelets. 
Ovary enclosed in a little bottle-shaped wtricle, the style 
protruding through a small aperture at the top, . 9. CAREX. 
Ovary partially enclosed in 1 or 2 glume-like scales, open at 
the side. 8. KOBRESIA. 
Flowers hermaphrodite, the stamens and ovaries within the 
same glume. 
Glumes in each spikelet arranged in two opposite rows. 
All the glumes in each spikelet, except one outer one, 
containing flowers. Spikelets many, in a compound 
umbel : : : : ; : : s . 1, CYPERUS. 
