73 



NOTES ON SOME BKITISH SEDGES. 



By the Eev. E. S. Marshall, M.A., F.L.S. 



(Plate 383.) 



The Editor has asked me to write an account of Carex chordor- 

 rliiza, lately found by Mr. Shoolbred and myself in the north of 

 Scotland, and has assented to my adding remarks on some other 

 native species. A short time ago, at Pfarrer G. Kiikenthal's 

 invitation, I sent him a large number of sheets from my collection; 

 his comments upon these, which I have tested and supplemented as 

 far as lay in my power by consulting books of reference and by 

 examining the rich material at Kew and at South Kensington, 

 appear to me so important and so accurate as to deserve wider 

 circulation. My best thanks are hereby given to Messrs. Britten, 

 J. G. and E. G. Baker, 0. B. Clarke, and W. P. Hiern for their 

 valuable help in directing me to various works and specimens ; but 

 they should not in any way be held responsible for the views 

 adopted, except where this is expressly stated. 



Carex chordorrhiza L. (ex Ehrhart). C.funiformis Clairvaux 

 {teste Koch, Synopsis, ed. 2, p. 864). Boot (or rather, underground 

 stem) far-creeping, stoloniferous, wiry, sulcate, about the thickness 

 of coarse twine, sending up at intervals obliquely ascending leafy 

 branches and flowering stems, which are few-leaved or even leafless, 

 smooth, straight or somewhat curved, about 6-12 in. high. Leaves 

 glabrous, smooth, striate, flat, bright green, about 1-1| line broad, 

 mostly stiff and erect (rush-like), numerous on the barren shoots, 

 falling considerably short of the inflorescence. Spikelets male above, 

 crowded together in a compact ovate (or, in fruit, occasionally 

 triangular) head about ^-f in. long. Glumes light yellowish 

 brown, somewhat darker in the centre, with a hyaline white border, 

 obtuse or subacute. Stvjmas 2. Perigijnium ovate, turgid, convex, 

 shining, glabrous, yellowish with conspicuous brown ribs, rather 

 truncate below, gradually narrowed into a smooth, obtusely bifid 

 beak, which is broadly scarious at the tip and has more or less 

 jagged inner edges. Nut oblong-lanceolate, abruptly truncate 

 above (so as to form a decided ''shoulder"), pale yellow, dotted, 

 with a slender beak almost equalling its length and usually 

 projecting a little beyond the beak of the perigynium. 



This description is mainly taken from British dried material ; 

 but I have also drawn upon other sources, as our specimens were 

 in ripe fruit. Mr. Morgan's capital illustration does not show the 

 remarkable root-character, for which there was no room on the 

 plate, nor the curious beak of the fruit. The species is beautifully 

 figured in Flora Danica, fasc. xiv. tab. 1408. 



This well-marked plant grows in very wet peat-bogs, half-buried 

 among Sphagnum, in just such places as produce C. limosa, with 

 which it is associated at Altnaharra. It is found, according to 

 Nyman, from Iceland, through Lapland and Finland, to N. Kussia, 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 36. [March, 1898.] g 



