360 North American Cyperacece, 
sistent. Style 2-cleft, compressed, dilated or tuberculate at 
the base. Nut biconvex, crowned with the broad persistent 
tubercle, or rostrate with the persistent style. — Culms leafy ; 
spikes in lateral and terminal compound cymes ; rays and pe- 
duncles alternate, with leafy sheaths at the base. 
1. PSILOCARYA SCIRPOIDES. 
Spikes oblong-ovate, many-flowered ; scales lanceolate- 
ovate, acute, membranaceous ; nut tumid, obscurely rugose ; 
style long, rostrate, persistent, much dilated at the base, and 
decurrent at the edges of the nut. 
Culm obtusely triangular, leafy, smooth. Leaves gramineous, 6 — S 
inches long, 1 — IJ line wide, smooth ; sheaths naked at the throat. 
Cymes pedunculate, one terminal and one from the sheath of each leaf, 
spreading; rays 1 — 2 inches long, alternate, diverging, with loose, 
somewhat foliaceoiis sheaths, dividing towards the summit into 3 
or 4 short branches, or compoundly branclied ; all the subdivisions alter- 
nate and sheathed at the base. Sj)ikes 3 — 4 lines long, 20 — 30-flowered, 
somewhat acute, equally imbricated on every side. Scales very thin, 
chestnut-coloured, marked with a narrow central' nerve, all bearing 
fertile flowers. Bristles entirely wanting. Stamens constantly 2; 
jilaments slender, firmly attached one on each side of the base of the 
torus. Chary oblong, attenuated above into a flat smooth ensiform style, 
which is 2-cleft one-third of the way down. Nut very tumid and some- 
what hemispherical on each side, dark brown, obscurely rugose trans- 
versely; the base abruptly contracted, and surrounded with a short torus; 
the summit crowned with a large, flat, rostrate, persistent style, which is 
much dilated at the base, and decurrent at the edges of the nut, so as 
nearly'' to surround it with a pale narrow margin. 
Hab. Borders of a pond near North Providence, Rhode 
Island, T. A. Greene, Esq.! ; Massachusetts (the precise loca- 
lity not recorded), collected by the late Dr. H. Little of Bos- 
ton ; V. s. in Herb. Acad. Nat. Sc. of Philadelphia. 
Obs. T received specimens of this rare and interesting 
plant about six years ago, from my intelhgent friend Mr. Greene 
of New Bedford, who has shown much zeal in examining the 
