SEDGE GRASS. — BLACK KNAP WEED. 



67 



none. Nectary inflated, oblong, egg-shaped, contracted up- 

 wards, opening at the tip, sometimes with two teeth, perma- 

 nent. Pistil : germen three-sided, within the nectary; style 

 simple; stigmas either three or two, awl-shaped, incurved, 

 long, acuminate, pubescent. Pericarp none, except the 

 enlarged nectary, which protects the seed. Seeds single, 

 acutely egg-shaped, most frequently three- sided, one angle 

 often less than the other. 



Essential character. — 'Seed inclosed in the permanent 

 nectary. 



These plants are very nearly allied to the grasses, and agree 

 with them in their general appearance, leaves and placenta- 

 tion. They are, however, of a much harsher texture, and the 

 stem is not hollow, but filled with a spongy substance, and it 

 is frequently three-cornered. The difference in the fructifica- 

 tion is very considerable ; and the stem has no joints, which is 

 the never-failing distinction of a true grass plant. The 

 ^' sedge grasses " are perennial, and flower from April to 

 August. They grow in wet, swampy grounds, in bogs, fens, 

 and marshes, or by the sides of ditches and rivers, or in moist 

 woods ; some few, however, aflfect heaths and hilly pastures. 

 They are eaten by no grazing animal, and seem produced 

 by nature from a principle in her economy, that a bad plant 

 is better than none. Upon getting quit of the superfluous 

 moisture in the land, and by top-dressing the surface, the 

 plants will commonly give way to a finer and more valuable 

 herbage. 



The Sedge grass," though generally reckoned a weed, is 

 not without its use. The herbage is very coarse and harsh, 

 and relished by no animal. The roots give stability to bogs ; 

 the plants are used for covering hovels and ricks, for hghting 

 fires and heating ovens, and for tying young hop plants to 

 the poles. In Lapland, the inhabitants comb and dress some 

 species of sedge, as we do flax, and use it as a defence against 

 the rigours of the climate. 



21. Black knap weed," or the " Centaurea " of botany, is 

 a common and abundant weed in some moist and cold 

 meadows and pastures. The plant belongs to the class and 



