TRIANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. Eleocharis. 105 
Var. 3. Tufted. 
FI. Dan. 937— Ger. Em. 22. 7 — Dark. 1266. 6. left-hand plant — J. B. ii. 
498. 1. right-hand plant. 
{Stem two or three feet high, striated, roughish at the angles, leafy at the 
base and summit. Leaves sheathing, keeled, dark green, rough-edged, 
taper-pointed. Sm. E.) Panicle sometimes branched, at others simple. 
Huds.; as in the fig. on the left hand in Park, and that on the right in 
J. JB. St. Spikes oblong; colour of rusty iron. Seeds the same colour, 
egg-shaped, compressed, acuminate; two or three whitish, lopped, chaffy 
substances, shorter than the style, rise from the base of the germen. In 
some specimens the spikes are sessile, and the stem-leaves shorter than 
the straw; in others they are longer ; and in some the spikes are either 
sessile, or on fruit-stalks. Scop. 
Salt-marsh Club-grass. (Welsh: Clwp-fnvynen y morfa. E.) Sea- 
coast. (Salt-marshes, or in the vicinity of saline springs, not uncommon. 
E.) Shirley Wych, near Stafford. Stokes. (Maryport and Allonby, 
Cumberland. Hutchinson. Badsey, Warwickshire, whence Purton in¬ 
fers there must be salt-springs near that spot; but, according to Curtis, 
it is frequently found where the water is not salt. E.) P. Aug.* 
(ELEO'CHARXS. Bloss. none. Cal. imbricated all round. 
Seed crowned and articulated with the dilated hardened 
base of the style. Br. E.) 
(E. palus'tris. Straw cylindrical: root creeping : summits two : seed 
lenticular, most convex on one side. 
FI. Dan. 273— E. Bot. 131 : hut erroneously represented ivith three stigmas : 
— Lob. Ohs. 44. 1— Ger. Em. 1631. 7 — Park. 1196. 1 and 2— II. Ox. viii. 
10. 32. and row 3. fig. between 33 and 34— Spike only, Scheuch. 7. 17 — 
Dissected flower and a spike, Leers, 1. 3. 
Stems many together, erect, as thick as a crow quill, from six to twelve 
inches high, each invested at the base with two or three tight, cylindri¬ 
cal, reddish sheaths. Leaves none. Spike egg-oblong, acute, half an 
inch long. Summits certainly but two, downy, the length of the style, 
whose base is greatly dilated, but its point of attachment to the germen 
is not thicker than the upper part of the style. Seed yellow, polished, 
crowned by the base of ths style, and subtended by from three to five 
bristles, about its own length, rough, with deflexed teeth. Eng. FI. 
Creeping Spike-rush. (Club-rush. Welsh: Clwp-frwynen y gors. E. 
palustris. Br. Scirpus palustris. Linn. With. Banks of rivers, ponds, 
and ditches, frequent. P. June—July. E.)t 
* Cows eat it. The roots, dried and # ground to powder, have been used instead of 
flour in times of scarcity. (They are sweet to the taste, and being larger than those of 
Eleocharis palustris, might be more worth collecting as food for pigs. This is supposed 
to be the plant known as a very noxious weed in certain valuable pastures bordering the 
Isle of Thanet, and there denominated Spurt-grass. The root creeps powerful^', and 
palliative remedies are of no avail. The only effective mode of clearing the land is to 
pare and burn ; take a course of crops, and let the hand and fork assist the plough and 
harrows. Sinclair. 
t Swine devour the roots greedily when fresh (for which purpose they are collected 
by the Swedish peasants), but will not touch them when dry. Goats and horses eat 
it. Cows and sheep refuse it. 
