100 CLASS-BOOK OF BOTANY. 
median nerve, or midrib. Hach minute S flower consists of 
3 stamens, having very slender flattish filaments and long 
narrow basifixed anthers. There is no perlanth and no 
ovary. (To see these 
characters properly, 
the flowers require to 
be dissected in a drop 
of water under a 
simple microscope.) 
The 92 flowers ayre 
much larger than the 
Yy a 3 and are also placed 
Fig. 198. ¢ flower of TFig.199. Ripeutricle 1 the axil of a glume. 
Carex (mag.). of Carex (mag.). Hach is enclosed in 
hw; a false perianth or 
utricle,* urceolate in form, and terminating above in a slender 
2-pointed beak, from which project the points of the 3 
stigmas. Within the utricle is a single 3-angled ovary, 
bearing one style divided above into 3 stig- 
matic arms, and containing one erect ovule. 
The ovary ripens into an achene, which re- 
mains enclosed in the utricle. The seed ig 
seen in longitudinal section to have a minute 
embryo at the base of, but enclosed by, mealy 
endocarp. | 
Considerable variations 
from this type are to be 
found in other sedges and 
cutting-grasses. 
1 Thus, in the large marsh- 
Ne Fig. 201. Seed of sedges of the genus Cyperus, 
Big, 200. Carpel Carer, longi- so common throughout the 
eRe Sort ay. ceive North Island and parts of 
utricle (mag.). —_ryo. the South, the spikelets are 
crowded into spikes, and 
these again are aggregated into umbels, giving the plants a 
striking and characteristic appearance. 
In others, as some species of Schenus, Scirpus, and 
Hleocharis, there is a perianth present in the flowers, consist- 
ing of 3 or 6 elegant hypogynous bristles. 
In the large cutting-grasses of the genus Gahmia, the 
filaments elongate considerably after flowering, twisting into. 
a mass in which the achenes are entangledand suspended. In 
them the pericarp is thick and polished, and so hard as to resist 
almost any knife-edge. 
Lastly, in the flowers of Uncinia, a genus which in many 
* Lat. utricwlus, a bladder. 
