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practice they are held in great esteem as a cure for disorders of the stomach and irritation of the bowels. The bulbous roots are scraped and pounded with green ginger, and in this form, mixed with honey, they are given in cases of dysentery in doses of about a scruple. (Taylor's Med. Top. of Dacca.) In the Concan, the fresh tubers are applied to the breast in the form of lep as a galactagogue. (Dymock.) The roots are in Chutia Nagpur used in fever, (Campbell.)

Arabian and Persian writers describe the drug as attenuant, diuretic, emmenagogue and diaphoretic. They state that it is prescribed in febrile and dsypeptic affections, and in large doses as an anthelmintic, and externally as applied to ulcers or used as an ingredient to warm plasters. (Dymock.)

Vern. : — Kaseru, dila (Pb.).

Habitat : — From the Punjab to Nilgiri Mounts scattered, but not common.

Stem at base erect. Stolons lateral, long, very slender, with small pale scales, often disappearing after the tubers are formed ; tubers (ripe) woody ; more regularly zoned than those of C. rotundus. Leaves and bracts long. Spikelets yellow or yellow-brown. Glumes over nearly their whole breadth plicate-striate; (otherwise as C. rotundus). Glumes in fruit slightly rigid, so that they are less closely imbricated (than in C. rotundus), the spikelets more turgid. So close to C. rotundus that it is much mixed with it in many herbaria. (C. B. Clarke.)

Use : — In the U. P. the root is officinal as kaseru (Stewart).

It so closely resembles C. rotundas that it is highly probable the reputed discoveries of it in India and elsewhere are in some instances at least due to mistaken determinations. It has, however, been recorded as found in one or two localities in the Punjab and in the Nilgiri hills, but nowhere common. It thus no doubt exists in India, but until fresh investigations have been made it is perhaps desirable to leave the matter in this position. Repeated efforts have, however, been put forth (so it has been affirmed) to introduce the cultivation of this plant, but with absolute failure everywhere. The present species, therefore, contributes no known portion of the supply of edible Cyperus tubers in India. Of other countries it is reported the tubers are often roasted, then ground to a powder, and used in the preparation of chufas coffee or chufas chocolate. [Cf. Kew Mus. Guide, 1895, No. 2, 59.] (Watt.).