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SPARGANIUM fimplex.
Unbranched Upright Bur-reed.
M O N 0 ECIA Triandria.
Gen. Char. Male, Cal. 3-leaved. Cor. none.
Female, Cal. 3 -leaved. Cor. none. Drupa dry,
with 1 feed.
Spec. Char. Leaves triangular at their bafe, their
fides flat. Common flower-ftalk Ample. Stigma
linear.
Syn. Sparganium fimplex. Sm. FI. Brit. 962. Hudf.
401. With. 112. Hull. 203. Sibth. 25. Abbot.
200. Curt. Bond. fa ß . 5. t. 67. Dick/. H. Sicc.
fa ß . 6. 7.
S. ere&um ß . Linn. Sp. PI. 1378.
S. non ramofum. Raii Syn. 437.
" v r
OT very rare in pools and ditches, particularly where the
foil is gravelly, flowering in July and Augutl.
This is fmaller than the more common S. ramofum, of which
it has been confidered as a variety, but certainly without rea-
fon. Mr. Curtis has well remarked that the tides of the triangular
bafes of the radical leaves in this are flat or level, not
concave. The flowering part of the Item is Ample, not branched.
The lowermoft head of flowers {lands generally on a partial
llalk. The calyx is generally green, or at leafl: of a paler brown
than in the former. The ftigma indeed, as in that, is long and
linear, not thort and ovate as ip S. natans, to which the pre-
fent fpecies is in other refpefts perhaps more allied than to
S. ramofum. See our t. 273, where many particulars relative to
the botanical hiftory of thefe plants are difcufled.
The S. fimplex fometimes varies with two tligmas, like the
ramofum.
According to Linnaeus’s theory of hybrid plants, this thould
be a mule produced byS. ramofum impregnated by S. natans;
but we would be cautious in fele&ing fa£ts to fupport fo fanciful
an hypothefis.