2. PÆPALÁNTHUS, Martius.
Stamens as many as the (often involute) lobes of the funnel-form corolla of the sterile flowers, and opposite them, commonly 3, and the flower ternary throughout. Otherwise nearly as in Eriocaulon. (Name from παιπάλη, dust or flour, and ἄνθος, flower, from the meal-like down or scurf of the heads and flowers of many South American species.)
1. P. flavídulus, Kunth. Tufted, stemless; leaves bristle-awl-shaped (1´ long); scapes very slender, simple, minutely pubescent (6–12´ high), 5-angled; bracts of the involucre oblong, pale straw-color, those among the flowers mostly obsolete; perianth glabrous; sepals and petals of the fertile flowers linear-lanceolate, scarious-white.—Low pine-barrens, S. Va. to Fla.
3. LACHNOCAÙLON, Kunth. Hairy Pipewort.
Flowers monœcious, etc., as in Eriocaulon. Calyx of 3 sepals. Corolla none! Ster. Fl. Stamens 3; filaments below coalescent into a club-shaped tube around the rudiment of a pistil, above separate and elongated; anthers 1-celled! Fert. Fl. Ovary 3-celled, surrounded by 3 tufts of hairs (in place of a corolla). Stigmas 3, two-cleft.—Leaves linear-sword-shaped, tufted. Scape slender, bearing a single head, 2–3-angled, hairy. (Name from λάχνος, wool, and καυλός, stalk.)
1. L. Michaùxii, Kunth.—Low pine-barrens, Va. to Fla.
Order 128. CYPERÀCEÆ. (Sedge Family.)
Grass-like or rush-like herbs, with fibrous roots, mostly solid stems (culms), closed sheaths, and spiked chiefly 3-androus flowers, one in the axil of each of the glume-like imbricated bracts (scales, glumes), destitute of any perianth, or with hypogynous bristles or scales in its place; the 1-celled ovary with a single erect anatropous ovule, in fruit forming an achene. Style 2-cleft with the fruit flattened or lenticular; or 3-cleft and fruit 3-angular. Embryo minute at the base of the somewhat floury albumen. Stem-leaves when present 3-ranked.—A large, widely diffused family.
I. Flowers all perfect, rarely some of them with stamens or pistal abortive; spikes all of one sort.
Tribe I. SCIRPEÆ. Spikelets mostly many-flowered, with only 1 (rarely 2) of the lower scales empty.