1033 



highly probable that it has been passed over by me, at least on the 

 mainland, for the last species. Plentiful on the upper and boggy 

 part of Colwell Heath, Freshwater, June, 1841. Well distinguished 

 by the peduncles of the flower-spikes, that are scabrous in various de- 

 grees, with minute, subappressed bristles. E. gracile, Roth (not of 

 Smith), found in Surrey, should be looked for in this county. 



In the following enumeration of the Hampshire Carices, the list 

 will be found extremely imperfect as regards the mainland division of 

 the county, for which stations are still wanting to show the distribu- 

 tion even of the commoner species, whilst several additional ones re- 

 main doubtless to be discovered. My comparatively recent and im- 

 perfect practical acquaintance with that part of Hants; its great 

 extent compared with the Isle of Wight; the restriction of the flower- 

 ing and fruiting of the sedges to the earlier months of summer,* and 

 the difficulty of inducing the generality of local observers to pay at- 

 tention to these and the rest of the Glumaceae, in their respective dis- 

 tricts, or even to transmit specimens fresh or dried for examination 

 and recording; all these have proved obstacles to ascertaining with 

 any approach to precision the number, frequency and distribution of 

 the Cyperacese and their allies over the greater portion of the county, 

 and have compelled me to depend mainly on my own exertions for 

 filling up so important a gap in the botany of the district. As far, 

 however, as regards the Isle of Wight, the catalogue of indigenous 

 species belonging to these interesting and beautiful orders, will, I 

 flatter myself, be found tolerably complete, they having engaged much 

 of my attention for several years past. The rich sample yielded by 

 this little sea-girt spot, gives earnest of what may be expected from 

 diligent exploration of a field of four or five times its area, hitherto so 

 superficially examined, and that chiefly by strangers and temporary 

 visitors, as has been mainland Hants. I shall consider myself parti- 

 cularly under obligations to such botanical fiiends and correspond- 



* It is proper to remark in this place, that in the Isle of Wight, and unquestion- 

 ably in every part of the county besides, by far the greater number of Carices indige- 

 nous thereto, flower in May, and not a few towards the close of April, only partially 

 continuing to blossom on through the first week or ten days of June, excepting the 

 undermentioned, which belong mostly to that month : C. ovalis, intermedia, extensa, 

 vulpina, Pseudo-cyperus, with perhaps one or two others. A knowledge of this fact 

 will save the botanist in the island both trouble and disappointment, as, if guided by 

 the time given in our ordinary hand-books, he will find those species in fruit, perhaps 

 over-ripe and ready to fall away, which he was led to expect in flower, or in that in- 

 termediate state of flower and fruit which is the best possible for examination and 

 preservation in the herbarium. 



Vol. hi. 6 r 



