120 MONOECIA— TRIANDRIA. Carex. 



In watery meadows, about ditches and pools, common. 



Perennial. May. 



Root creeping extensively, with whitish horizontal runners, very 

 difficult of extirpation. Stems commonly 2 or 3 feet in height, 

 in a starved state sometimes but 3 or 4 inches, having 3 rough 

 angles ; drooping at the summit while in flower only, but sub- 

 sequently quite erect. Leaves sheathing the base of the stem in 

 three rows, of a bright deep green, not glaucous, upright, 

 drooping at the extremity, shorter than the stems, rough at the 

 edges and keel. Bracteas leafy, tapering, without sheaths, 

 though often minutely auricled ; the first or second overtopping 

 the stem. Fertile catkins 3 or 4, nearly, if not quite, sessile, 

 except the lowermost, all a little inclining while in flower, cy- 

 lindrical, slender, 1^ or 2 inches long, dense, many-flowered, 

 commonly with a few barrenyiJore^s at the summit. Scales lan- 

 ceolate, acute, black, with a pale rib. Completely barren cat- 

 kins 2 or 3, about the size of the fertile ones, with lanceolate, 

 bluntish, dark scales. Stain. 3. Sligm. never more than 2, by 

 which, as the Bishop of Carlisle and Mr. Curtis long since re- 

 marked, this species is infalhbly known from the two following, 

 though Linnaeus and many others have confounded them. Fruit 

 for the most part shorter than the scales, elliptical, obtuse, 

 compressed, ribbed, smooth, green, with partial stains of brown, 

 deciduous ; beak short, cylindrical, abrupt, entire. Seed small, 

 obovate, compressed, not triangular. 



Linnaeus, having quoted, with commendation, for this Carex Mi- 

 cheli's t. 32./. 12, which has no character in common with it, 

 except the numerous barren catkins, and which really belongs 

 to C. recurva, n. 48, some of the most able botanists have been 

 led into error by that means. 



53. C. pahidosa. Lesser Common Carex. 



Stigmas three. Catkins cylindrical, bluntish, erect; the 

 fertile ones with taper-pointed scales. Fruit ovate, tri- 

 angular, compressed, with a notched beak. 



C. paludosa. Gooden. Tr. of L. Soc. v.2. 202. mild. Sp. PI. v. 4. 



305. Fl. Br. 1002. Engl. Bot.v. 12. t. 807. Hook. Scot. 269. 



Schk. Car. 121. f. 0,o,/. 103. " Host Gram. v. 1. 68. t. 92." 

 C. acuta. Curt. Lond. fasc. 4. ^ 61 j omitting the references to 



Scopoli and Micheli. 

 C. acutiformis. Ehrh. Calam. 30. 

 Gramen cyperoides minus angustifolium. Dill, in Rail Syn. 418. 



In boggy meadows, and about the margins of ditches, pools and 



rivers, common. 

 Perennial, May. 

 Root creeping, like the foregoing, from which this species differs 



in its rather larger size, glaucous hue, erect posture, and most 



