Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/773

 SEDALIA SEDALIi, a town and the county seat o Pettis co., Missouri, on the Missouri Pacific railroad, at the junction of the Lexington branch, and the Missouri, Kansas, and Texa railroad, 189 m. by rail W. of St. Louis, 64 m W. by N. of Jefferson City, and 94 m. E. S E. of Kansas City; pop. in 1870, 4,560, o: whom 845 were colored ; in 1875, about 8,000 It was laid out in 1860, on one of the high est swells of a rolling prairie. The principa street is 120 ft. wide, is finely shaded, and has many handsome buildings. Sedalia is lightec with gas, and is supplied with water by th< Holly system. It has a large and rapidly in creasing trade. It contains the shops of the two railroad companies, several founderies anc machine shops, flouring mills, and manufac- tories of agricultural implements, carriages, soap, and woollens. There are three hotels, two national banks, good public schools, t public library and reading room, three daily and four weekly newspapers, and 11 churches. SEDAN (anc. Sedanum), a fortified town ol France, in the department of Ardennes, on the right bank of the Meuse, 130 m. N. E. of Paris; pop. in 1872, 14,345. It has fine squares and promenades, a Protestant and three Catholic churches, and a chateau in which Turenne was born. Fine black cloths and cassimeres, linen, hosiery, leather, hard- ware, and firearms are manufactured. Se- dan was formerly the capital of a principali- ty, which in 1591 came into possession of the Turenne family, who in 1642 ceded it to France. It had a celebrated Protestant uni- versity, which was suppressed on the revoca- tion of the edict of Nantes in 1685. The chairs commonly known as sedans took their name from this town. The fortress surren- dered to the Hessians in 1815, and was occu- pied by the Prussians till November, 1816. Here the 'Germans, on Sept. 1, 1870, obtained a victory over the French, which led to the capitulation of the fortress, and the capture of Napoleon III. and his army. (See FBANOE, vol. vii., p. 397.) SEDGE (A. S. secg or sacg, a dagger, for- merly applied to sharp-pointed plants in gen- eral which grew in marshes), a name for plants of the genus carex, but sometimes applied in a general way to other plants of the cyperacea, or sedge family, to which it belongs. There are about 200 species of the genus carex in North America ; they are found in great abun- dance in wet places (though some are met with only in dry localities and on the tops of moun- tains), where they form a large portion of the vegetation, and are often mistaken for grasses, from which they differ in several important particulars. The sedges are perennial, and, especially those in wet localities, often form dense tufts or tussocks ; the culms or stems are triangular and solid ; the leaves are grass- like, often rough on the margin and keel, with the sheaths (which in grasses are generally split down on one side) quite closed or entire; SEDGE 747 at the upper portion of the stem are leafy or scale-like bracts, in the axils of which are borne the flower spikes, which are also termi- nal. The stamens and pistils are in separate A Sedge (Carex umbellate), with separate Perigonlum and Bract, Pistil, and section of Ovary. flowers, either on the same spike (androgy- nous), or on separate spikes on the same plant (monoecious), or rarely on distinct plants (dioe- cious). Both kinds of flowers are subtended by a scale-like bract, and these scales overlap one another equally around the axis to form a more or less cylindrical (sometimes ovoid) spike. The staminate flowers consist of three (rarely two) stamens to each bract; the pis- tillates have a single ovary and two or three long stigmas; the ovary is enclosed in a bag or sac with a narrow orifice from which the styles are protruded; this bag (perigynium) increases with the ripening fruit, and in some species becomes large and bladdery ; the fruit is a lens-shaped, plano-convex or triangular akene. The carices vary in height front a few inches to 3 ft. and over; in some the stems are weak and thread-like, and in oth- ers very wiry and rigid; they for the most part flower early in spring, and perfect their fruit during the summer. It is estimated that there are in all about 1,000 species, which are more abundant in arctic and cold countries, and diminish toward the tropics, where they are found only in the mountainous portions. While the species are numerous, the number of individuals is also very great, and in many )laces they form a large share of the vegeta- man; their stems and foliage are dry and larsh, and contain very little sngar or starch ; ,heir chief office is to furnish mould for the lustenance of other plants. They can hardly )e regarded as weeds, though some make heir appearance in pastures which are too wet or the growth of nutritious grasses ; the large ussocks which the sportsman and botanist
 * ion; but they are of little direct value to