Papyrus Cyperus papyrus
- grows in the Bellarmine Greenhouse....check it out!!!!
-a fresh-water aquatic plant (a "reed")...can grow 12 feet tall
- Monocot, Angiosperm, stem is 3-sided
-Reproduces sexually by seed (that are finicky to germinate), and vegetatively by either: 1) an underwater stem or 2) adventitiously (roots can form from the flower head if it happens to droop into the water). So can form very large colonies of reed....is weedy in some parts of northern Africa.
-native to Egypt.....used as far back as 2500 B.C. for paper, fiber, food, medicine, and boat building (Thor Heyerdahl, 1969, Norwegian explorer, sailed across Atlantic in a papyrus boat, took 57 days).
-dominant source of paper in Europe until about 1200 A.D.
papyrus.html at www.dla.utexas.edu
528-at72.gif at odyssey.lib.duke.edu
645-at72.gif at odyssey.lib.duke.edu
724-at72.gif at odyssey.lib.duke.edu
Purple nutsedge, Cyperus rotundus, turfgrass ...
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