p. 4

2

belong to the same division of the vegetable kingdom, being monocotyledonous, (one seed-lobed) and endogenous (inside-growing) with the leaves having [favoring with] parallel veins.

The principal and most obvious, as well as the most certain character by which the Cyperaceae can be distinguished from the grasses are the closed sheaths or leaf stalks which clasp the stem as a kind of tube, not being slit down on one side as in the grasses; and the solitary glume or scale like bract enveloping the flower. While in the grasses the glumes or chaff are two or more placed on the opposite side of the flower (and grain) in the Cyperaceae there is but one, placed on the outside. The flowers have mostly three stamens; the style is divided into two or three parts (or there are two or three styles, united at the base) and it has been found that when two-cleft the fruit is lenticular, but when three-cleft the fruit is three cornered. The flowers are in spikes near the summit of the culms or stems, the staminate and pistilate flowers sometimes in the same spike and sometimes on separate spikes. The roots are mostly fibrous, very rarely creeping or tuberous. The culms are usually solid and almost always triangular; and they grow in bunches or tufts, seldom forming a smooth and uniform sod like many of the grasses.-

2

belong to the same division of the vegetable kingdom, being monocotyledonous, (one seed-lobed) and endogenous (inside-growing) with the leaves having [favoring with] parallel veins.

The principal and most obvious, as well as the most certain character by which the Cyperaceae can be distinguished from the grasses are the closed sheaths or leaf stalks which clasp the stem as a kind of tube, not being slit down on one side as in the grasses; and the solitary glume or scale like bract enveloping the flower. While in the grasses the glumes or chaff are two or more placed on the opposite side of the flower (and grain) in the Cyperaceae there is but one, placed on the outside. The flowers have mostly three stamens; the style is divided into two or three parts (or there are two or three styles, united at the base) and it has been found that when two-cleft the fruit is lenticular, but when three-cleft the fruit is three cornered. The flowers are in spikes near the summit of the culms or stems, the staminate and pistilate flowers sometimes in the same spike and sometimes on separate spikes. The roots are mostly fibrous, very rarely creeping or tuberous. The culms are usually solid and almost always triangular; and they grow in bunches or tufts, seldom forming a smooth and uniform sod like many of the grasses.-