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stantly in view during my herborizing excursions, and every field bo- 

 tanist knows how greatly the detection of a rare or local plant is 

 facilitated when the mind is bent on its discovery from well-grounded 

 hopes of success in the attempt. I have little doubt the Cyperus lon- 

 gus grows on the mainland of Hants; it was formerly found in Pur- 

 beck, where it has been more recently detected by Mr. J. Hussey at 

 Ulwell, a hamlet about a mile and a half from Swanage. In Wilts it 

 occurs in plenty at Boyton, not far from the residence of the late A. 

 B. Lambert, Esq., a remarkably inland station ; and I think it has of 

 late years been found in Cornwall by Miss Warren, in which county 

 and in Devonshire I should expect it to be more frequent than in any 

 others. Flowering very late, when other Glumaceae (both Cyperacese 

 and Gramina) are quite past for the season, and the panicle being 

 often extremely reduced or depauperated, the species easily eludes 

 observation, or is passed by at that or an earlier period, before the in- 

 florescence is developed, for some Carex, especially C. vulpina, to the 

 leaves of which those of the Cyperus bear a very close resemblance. 

 But its presence on any spot may at once be ascertained, even when 

 so masked, by the fragrance and aroma of the black, creeping rhizoma, 

 which, however weak, is always sufficiently perceptible to distinguish 

 it from every species of Carex resembling it. 



N.B. — Cyperus fuscus will, I feel confident, be eventually found to 

 inhabit this county, and probably all the adjoining ones. It should 

 be looked for in August and September, on wet, sandy ground on the 

 grassy margins of pools and ditches, &c. Strange it is, that even this 

 humble annual, although the most northerly species of its genus 

 known, and a native of every country of Europe as far as Denmark 

 and the south of Sweden (lat. 55 — 56), and from the westernmost 

 shores of our continent across its entire breadth into Siberia, should 

 nevertheless have been unable to escape that suspicion of foreign in- 

 troduction which is endemic amongst the botanists of Britain, a class 

 complaint, terribly infectious in our atmosphere, it would seem, but 

 very little known in other countries. Accordingly, we find Cyperus 

 fuscus in the fourth and fifth editions of the 'British Flora' marked 

 with the asterisk, as one of those plants " which have become natural- 

 ized through the agency of man ;" and I remember, before its disco- 

 very by Mr. Salmon in a second and distant British station, having 

 been obliged to contend strongly for its indigenous origin at Chelsea 

 against a most excellent, learned and amiable naturalist, who insisted 

 that it could have no just title to be considered British, and deemed 

 its introduction due to human agency. I even ventured to predict its 

 Vol. hi. p 



