A tall perennial sedge, with terete hollow jointed culms, leafy to the top, the lower leaves reduced to sheaths. Spikes axillary, peduncled, simple or compound. Spikelets 2-ranked, linear, many-flowered, breaking up into i-fruited joints at maturity. Scales 2-ranked, carinate, conduplicate, decurrent on the joint below. Flowers perfect. Perianth of 6-9 retrorsely barbed bristles. Stamens 3. Styk 2-cleft at the summit, persistent as a linear-oblong beak on the summit of the achene. TName said to be from Dulcichimum, a Latin name for some sedge.] A monotypic genus.

1. Dulichium Arundinaceum (L.) Britton. Dulichium

Fig. 838

Cyperus arundinaceus L. Sp. PI. 44. 1753. Cyperus spathaceus L. Syst. Ed. 12, 2: 735. 1767. Dulichium spathaceum Pers. Syn. 1: 65. 1805. Dulichium arundinaceum Britton, Bull. Torr. Club 21: 29. 1894.

Culm stout, 1°-3° tall, erect. Leaves numerous, 3-ranked, flat, 1 - 3' long, 2."-4" wide, spreading or ascending, the lower sheaths bladeless, brown toward their summits. Spikes shorter than or the uppermost exceeding the leaves; peduncles 2"-12" long; spikelets narrowly linear, spreading, 6"-12" long, about 1" wide, 6-12-flowered; scales lanceolate, acuminate, strongly several-nerved, appressed, brownish; bristles of the perianth rigid, longer than the achene; style long-exserted, persistent.

In wet places, Newfoundland to Ontario, Minnesota, Washington, Florida and Texas. Also in Costa Rica. Aug.-Oct.