NOTES. 
AN ABNORMAL EPIGYNOUS CYFERACEA.— There is 
in the Berlin Herbarium a good example of Fimbristylis cymosa , R. 
Br., collected in the Radak Isles (Chamisso n. 148). Fig. 1 shows 
one nearly ripe (black) nut of this, with three staminodes on the top 
of the nut. Fig. 2 shows another nut with two very minute rudiments 
corresponding to the two larger staminodes in Fig. 1. The staminodes 
in Fig. 1 are white or pale yellow, resembling the tissue of the filament 
in the full stamens ; the (supposed) rudimentary anthers are fuscous 
black ; they afford only a suggestion of being two-celled. 
In the Scirpeae the stamens are often three or two in the same 
spikelet; Fig. 5 is the ground plan of a normal flower; the two 
stamens A, B belong to the interior whorl; the third stamen C is of 
2 
C £ 
the outer whorl (in many large Scirpi it can be easily seen to be 
exterior to, and attached lower down on, the axis than the other 
two), and it is this stamen of the outer whorl that is often suppressed. 
The position of the staminodes in Fig. 1 and Fig. 3 corresponds 
to that of the three stamens in the normal case, and the smaller size 
T 3 
