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CYPERACEAE 
4. J. bufonius L. Toad Rush. Stems commonly 2.4 to 14.4 cm. high, 
terete, branching from the base, leafy; leaves narrow, usually revolute 
and bristle-form; inflorescence a dichotomous cyme; flowers remote to 
subcapitate; perianth-segments exceeding the capsule.—Common in wet 
places or the beds of dried up pools. 
5. J. xiphioides E. Mey. Stems flattened, 2-edged, 4.3 to 8.6 dm. 
high; leaves equitant; more or less obviously septate; heads 6 to 11- 
flowered, more or less congested; capsule equalling or exceeding the 
perianth.—Coastal region, salt marshes and moist lands. 
CYPERACEAE. SEDGE FAMILY 
Grass-like or rush-like herbs with fibrous roots, annuals, or many 
species.perennial by long rootstocks. Stems solid (rarely hollow), usually 
triangular or terete, commonly scape-like with mostly basal leaves. 
Leaves alternate, narrow, with closed sheaths, often 3-ranked. Flowers 
one in the axil of each bract (scale), borne in spikelets or spikes which 
are arranged in clusters, racemes, panicles or umbels. Perianth none or 
represented by usually 4 to 6 bristles. Stamens 1 to 3. Pistil 1; ovary 
1-celled with 1 ovule, the single style with 2 or 3 stigmas. Fruit a 
lenticular or 3-angled achene. Embryo minute, in mealy endosperm.—A 
large family of 3000 species widety distributed over the earth, chiefly in 
marshes, of little economic importance. The foliage is useless for fodder 
since it contains so much silica. The vast libraries of the ancients were 
largely written on paper made from Cyperus papyrus L., a plant which 
also served to conceal little Moses in the bulrushes. 
Flowers, all or at least some of them, perfect. 
Spikelets flattened, the scales in 2 opposite ranks; inflorescence terminal, 
involucrate ; flowers without bristles.1. Cyperus. 
Spikelets cylindrical or sometimes a little flattened; perianth-bristles com¬ 
monly 1 to 8.2. Scirpus. 
Flowers unisexual; achene enclosed in a sac or spathe.3. Carex. 
1. CYPERUS L. Galingale 
Stems triangular or terete, never branched, leafy at base. Inflores¬ 
cence substended by a conspicuous leafy involucre, umbellate with un¬ 
equal rays and a sessile central spike, or capitate. Flowers in flattened 
or subterete spikelets, the spikelets in capitate clusters or arranged in 
spikes borne on the rays. Scales concave, more or less carinate, 2-ranked. 
(Greek Kupeiros, the ancient name.) 
1. C. virens Michx. Stems 2.8 to 8.6 dm. high; involucral bracts 4 to 
6, very long and leafy, much exceeding the inflorescence; umbel com¬ 
pound, or the spikelets capitate on the rays, or the whole reduced and 
subcapitate; spikelets long-oblong, numerous, crowded; scales more or 
less spreading, greenish or yellowish.—Valley flats and plains in 
moist spots. 
2. C. rotundus L. Nut-grass. Stems 1.4 to 2.8 dm. high; rootstock 
bearing tubers; involucral bracts 3 to 5, leafy, the longer ones equalling 
or little exceeding the inflorescence; umbel compound or nearly simple; 
spikelets linear, few, loosely clustered on the ends of the unequal rays; 
