SEDGE FAMILY 
185 
scales closely, appressed, dark purple-brown or with green margins and 
center.—A weed in cult, lands or orchards; introd. from trop. Am. 
2. SCIRPUS L. Club-Rush. Bulrush 
Perennials or annuals. Stems leafy or the leaves reduced to mere 
sheaths at base. Spikelets terete or somewhat flattened, solitary or in 
heads, spikes or umbels, subtended by an involucre of 1 to several leaves 
or the involucre wanting. Perianth-bristles 1 to 6, barbed or ciliate or 
smooth, or none. Stamens 2 or 3. Style 2 or 3-cleft, not swollen at the 
base, deciduous or its base persistent on the achene. Achene triangular, 
lenticular or plano-convex. (Latin scirpus, bulrush.) 
Stems terete or nearly so. 
Bristles barbed; umbels capitate or of a few short rays.1. 5. acutus. 
Bristles plumose; umbels long-rayed.2. S. calif ornicus. 
Stems 3-angled. 
Stems with a single head or compact umbel, leafy below or the leaves mainly 
basal; bristles 2 to 6. 
Involucral bract solitary; spikelets densely capitate-clustered, the inflores¬ 
cence apparently lateral; stems very slender, leafy below, scales 
awned-tipped.3. S. americanus. 
Involucral leaves several, foliaceous ; inflorescence terminal, the spikelets 
capitate or in an umbel with unequal mostly short rays. 
4. S. campestris. 
Stems bearing a panicle of irregular umbels, leafy to the top; pedicels or 
raylets erect or spreading, bearing few to several sessile spikelets; 
bristles 4.i.....5. S. microcarpus. 
1. S. acutus M u h 1 . 
Common Tule. Fig. 10. 
Stems arising from stout 
creeping rootstocks, te¬ 
rete or very obtusely 
trigonous above, 8.6 to 
25.9 dm. high, leafless; 
inflorescence as if lat¬ 
eral, 2.4 to 12 cm. long; 
involucral bract stout, 
shorter than the inflor¬ 
escence ; spikelets 6 to 12 
mm. long, numerous, 
congested-capitate, or in 
an irregular umbel with 
unequal rays; bristles 6, 
slender, retrorsely bar- 
bellate; style 2-cleft; 
achene lenticular.—Salt 
and freshwater marshes 
and borders of lakes and 
Scirpus acutus Muhl.; a, panicle of spike¬ 
lets x 1 ; b, scale x 4 ; c, achene x 4 ; d, achene 
and bristles x 7. 
streams, very common. It is our estimate that originally there were in 
California about 250,000 acres of tule lands; much of this area has now 
been reclaimed to cultivation. Tule stems were used by the native tribes 
to build their balsas or small boats and to weave mats. At the present 
day the stems are used for packing nursery stock for shipment, thatching 
hay-stacks, and as a source of potash. 
