WOOD CLUB RUSH 159 



Chilo cicatrice/lus. Slender Clouded Briiidle {Xylophasia scolopaciita), 

 are found on it. 



Scirptis, Plautus, is Latin for Uulnish, and the second Latin name 

 indicates its normally lacustral habitat. 



This plant is named Bass, Bent, Bolder, Bullrush, Bumble, Club- 

 rush, Frail-rush, Holrysche, Spurt Grass, Panier Rush. Lyte explains 

 thus: '• Bycause they use to make fygge frayles and paniers there- 

 withal". In respect to the name Bass a writer remarks: " According 

 to Kennett the term is also applied to a collar for cart horses made ot 

 flags". In Cumberland the word is applied generally to dried rushes. 



The name Bulrush is applied more commonly to Typha latijolia 

 to-day. It is spelt pole-rush, poolrush, but bullrush probably means 

 a big bush, bull being used to denote coarse or large. A horse's collar 

 of straw or rushes is called a bumble barfan, as distinguished from the 

 leather barfan, hence the name Bumble or Bumbles. It was called 

 1' "rail-rush " from its use in making irails ", a light kind ot l)asket made 

 of rushes or matting, much used for fruit; the term is still in use in 

 East Anglia for a shapeless, flexible mat basket. 



It has been used for making matting and chair-seats, or rush- 

 bottomed chairs, mats, and hassocks; and it is used like reeds and 

 grass-wrack. &c., for thatching. Bulrushes have also been used for 

 packing casks and rendering them watertight. The roots are astringent, 

 and were once used medicinally. Pack-saddles used to be stufted with 

 bulrushes. 



Essential Specific Characters: — 



320. Scirpiis /aatsin's, L. — Stem terete, no leaves, flower spikes in 

 a terminal panicle, glumes glabrous, nut obovate, 3-angled. 



Wood Club Rush (.Scirpus sylvaticus, L.) 



This is unrepresented in ancient plant beds. It is found in the 

 North Temperate region in Europe (except Greece), North Asia, and 

 Temperate North America. In Great Britain it is absent in the 

 Peninsula province from W. Corinvall, and N. Devon in the Ch;iinicl 

 province; not occurring in Bucks in the Thames province; W. Norfolk, 

 Cambridge, in Anglia; in the Severn province generally; in S. Wales 

 only in Carmarthen and Pembroke; N. Wales, in Carnarvon and 

 Denbigh; in the Trent province; in Mersey, Humber, Tyne, and 

 Lakes provinces, not in Westmorland or Isle of Man; in the W. Low- 

 lands, not in Wigtown, Lanark; in E. Lowlands, not in Selkirk, 

 Roxburgh: in E. Highlands, not in N. Perth, Forfar, Banff, I'llgin, 



