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XVI. Odfervations on il Britifh Species of Carex. By the Rev. Samuel 
Goodenough, L.L.D. F. R. S. Tr, dae Se o: | 
— Read April 3, 1792. ` 
HE plants arranged under the genus of Carex, feem always 
. to have laboured under fome degree of obfcurity and diffi- 
culty. They were generally ranked, by the older botanifts, under 
a very unmeaning name, Cyferoides; and having no ftriking vir- 
tues to recommend them, they were fpoken of in an indiftinét 
method, and were in a manner paffed over as things unworthy of 
laborious inveftigation. In the third edition of Ray's Synopfis, 
Cyperoides, including Cyperus, anfwers to our genus Carex; the 
thing likened including and referring to itfelf for its original! The 
general character is, Caules triquetri in omnibus, & in plerifque etiam 
femina: a defcription very indefinite. Morifon and Scheuchzer, to 
whofe confummate accuracy his Agroftographia will be a monumentum 
are perennius, obferve, with refpe&t to our genus of Carex, nearly the 
- fame method as Ray. I fay nothing of the more ancient writers, 
efpecially Gerard and Parkinfon ; for their works, being in Englifh, 
_ are not fo univerfaly known. All thefe authors purfued in fa& 
nearly the fame plan; and thus fome fpecies of Scirpus, Schænus and 
Cyperus, and all the fpecies of Carex (fo vague was their generic 
character) were comprifed under one name, Cyperoides, and formed 
one jarring family. 
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