m [ 744 ]
S P A R G A N I U M ramofum.
Branched Bur-reed.
MO NO E CIA Tnaridna.
Gen. Char. Male, Cal. 3-leaved. Cor. none.
Female, Cal. 3-leaved. Cor. none. Drvpa dry, with
1 feed.
Spec. Char. Leaves triangular at the bafe, their tides
concave. Common flower-ftalk branched. Stigma
linear.
Syn. Sparganium ramofum. Sm. FI. Brit. 961. Iludf.
401. With. 1 12. Hull. 203. Sibth. 25. Curt.
Lond. fafc. 5. t. 66. Ran Syn. 437.
S. eredtum. Linn. Sp. PI. 1378. Relh. 348.
Abbot, aoo.
C OMMON.in ditches and about the banks of rivers, flowering
in July and Auguft.
The root is perennial and creeping. Stem upright, about
three feet high, round, leafy, fmooth, divided at the top into
many alternate, flightly zigzag, flowering-branches. Radical
leaves fword-fhaped, eredt, fmooth, entire; at their bafe triangular,
with their fides concave or channelled, not flat. The
ftem leaves are merely concave, and lheathing at their bafe.
Heads of flowers alternate, feflile, many-flowered; the lower-
moll female; the upper male, more numerous, and clofer
together. Calyx-leaves fpatulate, brownilh, Ihorter than the
ftamina. Anther® yellowilh-white. Germen of 2 cells,
though generally one of them is obliterated and abortive in the
fruit. Style Ihort. Stigma long, linear, oblique, downy on
one fide, for the moll part folitary; fometimes there are two
fiigmas. The fruit ripens into brown prickly heads of dry
deciduous drupts, by which, as well as its fpreading roots, the
plant increafes abundantly.
The parts of fru£Ufication vary much in number, as ufual in
monoecious and dioecious plants; one of the many reafons for
keeping them in diftindl clafles from the hermaphrodite ones.