North American Cypcracece. 375 
Tribe VL SCLERIE J^:. 
Flowers diclinous. Fertile spikelets 1-flowered. 
Scales fasciculate ; the lower ones empty. Nut with a 
thick bony shell, naked, or seated in a cup-shaped lobed peri- 
gynium. 
20. SCLERIA, Bergius. 
Nut globose, ovate, or triangular ; the base surrounded 
with a lobed, repand, or annular perigynium. Style 3-cleft, 
deciduous. — Culms leafy ; spikelets fasciculate, racemose, pa- 
niculate, or verticellately spiked. 
Scleria, Berg. act. Holm. 1765, p. 144; Schreh. gen. pi. 
no. 140S ; Kunth, syn. 1. p. 160 ; A", ah Esenb. in Wight's 
contrib. p. ].16, and in Linncea, 9. p. 302. 
1. Scleria reticularis, Michx. 
Culm erect, retrorsely scabrous on the angles towards the 
base ; fascicles lateral and terminal, very remote, subsessile, 
somewhat branched, loosely flowered ; scales and bracts 
smooth ; nut globose, conspicuously reticulated with elevated 
lines, deeply pitted between the lines ; perigynium 3-lobed ; 
the lobes ovate, appressed. 
S. reticularis, Michx, fl. 2. p. 167, (not of Pursh, Elliott, and Muhl.) ; 
Willd. p. 4. p. 314- 
Culm 2 feet high, triangular, somewhat compressed and slender. 
Leaves H line wide, smooth, flat. Fascicles of spikelets about an inch 
long, the lateral ones 2 or 3 in number, and very remote, standing on 
short nearly included peduncles. Spikelets in pairs : the sterile lanceo- 
late, on a short stipe at the base of the fertile spikelet, many-flowered; 
the scales somewhat distichously arranged, lanceolate, each bearing 
two stamens, the filaments of which project a little beyond the scale : 
fertile spikelets mostly of 3 ovate, mucronate and carinate scales ; 
the two interior embracing the nut at its base- Style 3-cleft nearly 
Vol. III. 48 
