Localities. — Side* of ditches, marshy places, and wet meadows ; common. 
Perennial. — Flowers in June and July. 
Root creeping, black, shining, and sending out, at intervals, 
slender, branching fibres. Culms many together, from 6 inches to 
a foot high, upright, nearly cylindrical, smooth and shining, with- 
out any central pith, and consisting of large membranous tubes, 
surrounded by smaller ones, each invested at the base with 2 or 3 
tight, entire, cylindrical, reddish, shining sheaths. Leaves none. 
Spike egg-shaped or oblong, pointed, about half an inch long. 
Glumes (see fig. 1.) brown, bluntly keeled, egg-shaped, acute, with 
a membranous border. Stamens (see fig-1.) 3, hair-like. Anthers 
(see fig. 1.) strap-shaped, pale yellow, loosely spreading. Bristles 4, 
occasionally 5 or 6, longer than the germen, and clothed with de- 
flexed teeth, except at the base, which is slightly dilated. Germen 
(see fig. 2.) egg-shaped. Style (see fig. 2) 1, dilated and bulbous 
at the base (see figs. 2 & 3.), but its point of attachment with the 
germen contracted. Stigmas (see fig. 2.) only 2, downy, spread- 
ing, as long as the style. Fruit (see fig. 4.) brown and shining, 
inversely egg-shaped, tumid at each side, but most so on that next 
the glume ; crowned with the brown, wrinkled, compressed, per- 
manent, unpolished base of the style, and subtended by from 4 to 
6 bristles, about its own length. 
Goats and horses are said to eat this plant ; cows and sheep to 
refuse it. Swine devour the roots greedily when fresh, (for which 
purpose they are collected by the Swedish peasants), but will not 
touch them when dry. 
The Natural Order Cyperace.e is composed of glumaceous, 
monocotyledonous, herbaceous plants, which generally grow in 
moist places, and on the margins of lakes and streams. Their stems 
are 3-cornered or cylindrical, with or without joints. Their leaves 
are sheathing, and their sheaths entire and not slit. The flowers 
are perfect or divided, consisting of imbricated solitary bracteae 
(see fig. 1.), very rarely enclosing other bracteae called glumes. 
The stamens are situated below the germen, and are definite, as 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, or 12; but generally 3. The anthers are 
fixed by their base, and are entire and 2-celIed . The ovary is 
1 -seeded, and often surrounded by bristles called Hypogynous Setae ; 
these bristles have been considered, by some authors, as the true 
perianth, and styled perigynium. The ovule is erect ; the style 
single, generally trifid, rarely bifid ; the stigmas entire ; and the 
fruit ( nut of Lindley, achenium of Hooker) crustaceous or bony ; 
with the embryo enclosed in the base of a copious albumen. 
The Cyperaceee are of little importance as affording food or 
medicine to man. The roots of Cyperus longus are said to be 
tonic. The celebrated Papyrus antiquorum, from which the chief 
of the paper used by the ancients was procured, belongs to this 
natural order. 
The British genera are, 1. Cyperus; 2. Cladium ; 3. Schcenus, 
t. 268. ; 4. Rhynchospora, t. 396 ; 5. Scirpus, t. 264 ; 6. Blysmus, 
t. 308. ; 7. Eleocharis, t. 436. ; 8. Eriophorum , t. 427. ; 9. Elyna ; 
and 10. Carex. 
