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Pers. ; 4, spores, X 700diam.
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NOTE OX THE GENUS ARTHROSTYLIS. 63
Plate XC. : Fig. 1, Agaricus {Entoloma) juba-
tus, Fr. ; 2, section of ditto ; 3, spores of ditto, X 700 diam. ; 4, 5, Ilygrophorus
calyptrteformis, B. and Br. ; 6, section of ditto ; 7, spores of ditto, X 700 diam.
NOTE ox THE GENUS ARTHROSTYLIS, R. Br.
By H, F. Kaxce, Ph.D., etc.
In the 'Flora Hongkongensis,' Mr. Bentham, following Brown, as-
signs to this genus all " the characters of Rhynchospora, except that
tliere are no hypogynous bristles, and the style is articulate upon the
ovary below the dilated base." I may remark, however, that both in
the Singhalese ArtJirostylis JUiformis, Thw., and the Hongkong
A. Chinensis, Benth., I find the squamae distichously imbricate, as, in-
deed, they are described by Steudel (Synops. PL Cyper. 138), not
imbricate all round, as in RUynchospora. In this respect, therefore,
the two genera stand towards each other in the same relation as Tim-
bris/ylis and Abildgaardla, which, on account of various transitions,
Dr. Tbwaites has, with his usual jiulgment, united ; ami it is certain
that some Rhynchosporce show a tendency to a bifarious arrangement
of the scales. In the Ceylon species I can detect no hypogynous
setse ; but they were certainly present and very conspicuous in all the
flowers of the Hongkong one I examined some years back ; and Mr.
Sampson, who is a very careful and trustworthy observer, finds the
same in specimens gathered by him last autumn, an observation I have
myself verified. The instability of this character in very many genera
of the Order is now, however, fully established, so that Parlatore, Asa
Gray, and most other eminent modern botanists concur in the pro-
priety of reducing Isolepis to Scirpus, the two merely difi"ering by the
absence or presence of these organs. Apart from the distichous ar-
rangement of the squamae, more or less observable, as just remarked,
in some Rhynchosporce, Arthrostylis differs from that genus by the
style being, as in Fimbrklylis, articulated below, instead of above the
bulb-shaped base,—a distinction .of small account morphologically, I
think. On the other hand, I do not see that there is any single cha-
racter by which it can be distinguished from Schcexiis (including
Chtjetospora), and in habit it is exceedingly like S. ferrnginens, L. I
believe there is probably no single Order in which, in proportion to
the number now universally admitted, so many of the genera will, on
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