CYPERUS longus.
Sweet Cyperus, or English GaUngale.
TRIANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. Char. Glumes chaffy, imbricated in 2 ranks.
Cor. none. Seed 1, beardless.
Spec. Char. Stem triangular, leafy. Umbel leafy,
twice compounded; its stalks naked. Spikelets alternate.
Syn. Cyperus longus. Linn.Sp.PI. 67- Sm. FI. Brit, 47.
Huds. 17- With. 79. Hull. 13. Jacq. Ic. Rar.
t. 297- Raii Syn. 425.
F O R this Cyperus we have been obliged to have recourse to a
garden specimen, but it differs in no respect from wild ones.
Few British plants are so rare. It is no longer to be found in
the isle of Purbeck, nor was it ever found on St. Faith’s bogs
(see Hudson); a garden specimen, given by Mr. Humphrey
to Mr. Rose, having caused the mistake. Sir J. Cullum indeed
observed it in 1775 by a rivulet near St. David’s, and
since that time it has been gathered at Walton inGordan, Somersetshire,
by Mr. Dyer of Bristol. It is perennial, flowering
in July.
The root is long, creeping, twisted, astringent, chiefly remarkable
for an agreeable spicy odour, in which it resembles
the roots of some East Indian grasses, which when moistened
are used by the English to perfume their houses. Stem simple,
triangular, 2 feet high, with smooth edges. Leaves sheathing
the lower part of the stem and crowning its top, flat, long,
acute, rough-edged, keeled. Umbel composed of many triangular
slender stalks, of various lengths, sheathed at their
lower extremities, and each bearing a leafy umbel of similar,
but lesser, stalks, every one of which supports several alternate,
linear, compressed spikelets, formed of 2 ranks of imbricated
glumes, brown with a green keel, very neat and pretty when
closely examined. Stigmas S.