THE BRANCHED BUR-REED— continued. 
plants, and in many cases there is not so simple an explanation of its occurrence as 
there is here. As for the later development of staminate flowers, it is a common 
phenomenon, as in the clusters of the Horse-chestnut, and is generally explained as 
due to the lessening vigour of the flowering shoot after the physiologically exhaustive 
process of forming the lower, perfect, or in this case carpellate, flowers. 
Each flower in either type of cluster has from two to six small, oblong, obtuse, 
membranous bract-scales below it. The stamens are from two to eight in a flower, 
and differ from those of Typha in not being united below and in not having a 
projecting connective above. The pale anthers become yellow as they mature, so 
that the smaller balls of flowers formed by them contrast beautifully with the large 
glossy green carpellate structures and their translucent colourless styles. 
Parkinson in 1640 described the carpellate inflorescences as 
“ small greene burres, which are not rough at the first, but growing ripe are hard and prickly, somewhat resembling the 
rough burres of Platanus y the Plane-tree. ’* 
The ovaries differ somewhat in size and shape in the various species — about 
ten in all — and in the length of the styles and forms of the stigma. There are 
sometimes two united carpels forming a two-chambered ovary and a bifurcating 
style ; but in all cases the fruit becomes dry and membranous externally, surmounted 
by the persistent style, and with an almost woody endocarp or stone, and does not 
split. The ovule is suspended from the side of the upper end of the ovarian cavity 
and inverted, so that it has a slender suspending thread or raphe down one side, as 
has the kernel of the Hazel-nut, and its micropyle is brought round close to the 
point of attachment. The ripe seed is ovate and contains a straight embryo in the 
centre of mealy albumen. 
The geographical distribution of the genus is much the same as that of Typha , 
occurring, that is, in both Tropical- and Temperate latitudes, chiefly in the Northern 
Hemisphere, but represented also in Australia and New Zealand. 
The Branched Bur-reed ( Sparganium erectum L.) grows to a height of three or 
even four feet, branching chiefly in the upper, flowering region. Here it bears 
sheathing linear leafy bracts becoming successively shorter, in the axils of which are 
the branches bearing from one to three carpellate flower-heads, succeeded at a little 
distance by a larger number of staminate clusters, which are about half the size of 
the carpellate ones and are of an olive-brown tint when in bud. When they have 
discharged their pollen these wither and disappear. The ripe fruit is obpyramidal, 
surmounted by the short, stiff, persistent style, and its seed has a few slight ribs on 
its surface. 
As this plant stands by the river’s brim with its golden tufts of ripe stamens 
above and its silver-tipped burs beneath, the whole supported on a glossy polished 
stem and backed by luxuriant leafage, it suggests some sparkling masterpiece of the 
jeweller’s craft. 
