^orth American Cyperacea. 311 
scabrous under an ordinary lens, but exhibiting minute wrinkles when 
highly magnified. Tubercle distinct, wliitish, minute. 
Hab. Georgia, Le Conte!; Middle Florida, Z>r. Chap- 
man!; East Florida, Mr. Ware! 
16. Eleocharis melanocarpa. 
Culm compressed, sulcate ; spike oblong or cylindrical- 
oblong ; scales ovale, obtuse, membranaceous ; bristles 3^ — 4, 
as long as the nut, slender ; nut somewhat tiirbinate, obtusely 
triangular, (blackish) smooth 9 tubercle broad, triangular, flat, 
with a slrcirt point in the centre. 
Scirpus melanocarpiis, Baldio. MSS. ! 
Culms cespitose, 12 — 18 inches long, almost filiform, biit strong and 
■sviry, distinctly sulcate, clothed with truncate sheaths at the base. Spike 
4 — 6 lines long, obtuse, many-flowered. Scales scaridus on the margin, 
rafescent, with a yellowish midrib, the lowest broader and empty. 
Bristles commonly 3, one on each side of the niit, which they nearly 
equal in length, excluding the tubercle; they are very slender, of a dark 
purple colour, and retrorsely scabrous. Slamens 3. Style 3-cleft about 
half-way down. Nut half a line loiig, thick and obscurely 3-sided, ap- 
pearing (without the tubercle) truncate at the summit, of a brownish 
black colour, smooth afid shining. Tuhercle very short and dilated ; the 
margin thickened and projecting over the top of the nut, the centre pro- 
duced into a short triangular point. 
Hab. " Pine barrens, generally not far from streams of 
water — near Savannah, Georgia," Dr. Baldivin!- — May and 
June. 
Obs. This well-marked species differs from any other of 
the gemis Eleocharis, in its black turbinate nut, crowned with 
the large spreading triangular tubercle. On account of its 
slender bristles, trifid style, triangular nut, and membranaceous 
scales, I have placed it in the section Scirpidium, but it 
might with propriety be formed into a distinct subgenus. 
Vol. III. 40 
