204 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
exotics are scarcely to be found in 
other than botanic gardens, where, 
however, it is quite possible to make 
a selection of fairly ornamental 
kinds. 
Cyperus is in five sections, and a 
tremendous lot of names are in print 
— nearly 800. They are found al- 
most everywhere. Gray enumerates 
twenty-five representing all the sec- 
tions. One of the best-known to 
gardeners is the “papyrus” of the 
Egyptians, our word paper being 
a derivative of its name. It is found 
most abundantly in tropical Africa, 
with outlying stations of growth in 
Palestine and the Island of Sicily, 
which seems to indicate that some 
time its area of production was 
much wider than at present. There 
is a quantity growing on the banks 
of the Anapus, near Syracuse, 
which has recently excited interest 
because it is evidently dying out. 
There is an old statute in existence 
providing for its preservation, but 
administration of Crown lands says 
it has nothing to do with rivers, and that the 
Anapus is not a river anyway, while the papy- 
rus is of no interest to anybody other than archaeolo- 
gists. The Minister of Agriculture declares it is not an 
economic plant, and the Minister of Education states 
that he has plenty of other uses for his monies. He 
suggests, however, that some botanical society endeavor 
to solicit funds from the public for its preservation, 
and endeavor to find out how it happens to be there, 
anyhow ; as the question has often been asked, from 
the time of Pliny to the present. The primitive kind 
of paper made from the plant has frequently been found 
in mummy cases, in tombs, and among the ruins of 
Pompeii, usually occurring in strips of from eight to 
fourteen inches wide, and a foot or two to several yards 
long. They were made by laying thin layers of the 
stalks together, crossing others over them, and subject- 
ing the whole to heavy pressure until a thin even sheet 
was produced whose durability has proved remarkable. 
The fact of the plant being indigenous to the Medi- 
terranean basin is of interest, but the true centre of 
production is the Upper Nile regions, where hundreds 
of miles of it occur on the shores. The famous “Nile 
Sudd” is composed of these plants, together with large 
reeds, nymphaeas, pistias and other aquatics. If the 
material could be utilized as paper stock now, the sup- 
ply would be inexhaustible. C. alternifolius, from 
Madagascar, is the popular “umbrella plant” of the flor- 
ists and exists in two or three forms. Dichromena lati- 
folia is a plant of the Southern pine barrens, with a 
somewhat similar arrangement of leaves. 
Scirpus has anywhere from two to three hundred 
species distributed over the world. 
The pretty little sedge known in greenhouses as 
Isolepis, is S. riparius. 
S. Holoschoenus, an old-world species, has a varie- 
gated form, and the “banded sedge” from Japan, S. 
Tabernaemontani zebrina, is marked in the way of the 
Japanese Miscanthus zebrina. The hardy species are 
made but little use of in gardens, yet it would be easy 
to select a few really pretty plants from among the 
native kinds, such as S. sylvaticus for moist situations, 
or the widely distributed S. lacustris for wetter ones. 
Eriophorum, “cotton sedge,” has 13 species in tem- 
perate Asia, North America and Europe. Two or 
three of the showier native species are easy to obtain, 
and not unworthy of use for wild, boggy situations. 
Care. r has 500 or more species divided into II sec- 
tions, mostly found in the temperate and cold regions 
of the world. Gray enumerates 133 species as natives 
of the North Eastern States. The Eropean C. riparia 
CAREX BRUNNEA. CYPERUS ALTERNIFOLIUS 
GRACILIS. 
and C. acuta have variegated forms ; so also has C. 
brunnea (Japonica), and some others. 
Many of these sedge plants are extensively used 
in various parts of the world for weaving into mat- 
ting and such like domestic uses ; the tubers of a very 
few yield food, and several are pestiferous weeds in 
warm countries. James MacPherson. 
cyperus 
PAPYRUS. 
the present 
