1037 



examples from other places, and the stems are somewhat arcuate. 

 There cannot be the smallest doubt of its being a mere variety of C. 

 intermedia, nor could Dr. Boott, to whom I showed it, refer it to any 

 other species. The fruit of C. intermedia seems to be not often per- 

 fected, I find it so,however, at Easton, but do not perceive in the well- 

 ripened perigyne any sign of that widening at the base of the beak 

 mentioned by Babington and figured by Leighton (Fl. of Shrops.), and 

 which I therefore take to be an inconstant character. Dr. Boott thinks 

 that Hudson's name of disticha should be restored to this species on 

 the score of priority.* Nut greenish yellow, shining, punctate, and 

 somewhat wrinkled lengthways, ovoid-elliptical, very flatly trigonate, 

 the lateral angles obtuse, with a narrow rib-like margin, tipped with a 

 short cylindrical process, on which the style is jointed. 



Carex arenaria. Common on sandy sea-shores of the Isle of 

 Wight, and mainland Hants ; very rare in sandy places at a distance 

 from the coast. Plentiful on Ryde Dover. Shore, at Bembridge. 

 Abundant on the debris at the foot of the cliffs in Sandown Bay, and 

 on the detritus of the sand-cliffs, between Niton and Blackgang. 

 Shores of Portsea and Hayling Islands, Christchurch Head, &c. 

 About the sand-pits on the south-west side of Petersfield, close to the 

 town, in plenty, August, 1849. In considerable abundance a few 

 miles from the sea, in damp, blackish, sandy turf, on a moor near the 

 Avon, a little above Sopley, called, I was told, Dudmore (part of 

 Hume Common ?), growing with Ericge, Calluna, and other moorland 

 plants; June 30, 1850. Var. (3. Stem and spikes upright, root fibrous, 

 Withering's Arr., 3rd edit. ii. p. 90, t. 20, C. Witheringii, Gray's Nat. 

 Ait. Sandy shore on the north-east side of the Isle of Wight, Wither- 

 ing!!! On Ryde Dover. A very slight form, or rather state, of C. 

 arenaria, with a less creeping rhizome than usual, but differing in no 

 other respect, so far as I can see. The Petersfield and Hurne stations 

 are among the few inland localities I know for this species in England. 

 In 1838, I remarked it very abundant in the loose, sandy soil at Mil- 



* Hudson's name, although not unexceptionable, is preferable to that of inter- 

 media, subsequently imposed by Goodenough, because, as he tells us (Trans, of Linn. 

 Soc. ii. p. 155), of "having generally the intermediate spicula? almost entirely male'' 

 (staminate). But the adjective intermedia is mostly employed to signify a transition 

 species, or one intermediate between two others, its near allies'in character ; as used, 

 therefore, by the Bishop of Carlisle, the question at once suggests itself, betwixt what 

 two species is our Carex the connecting link? The spikelets of this sedge, if not 

 strictly speaking distichous, present sufficiently the appearance of that mode of ar- 

 rangement to render Hudson's epithet allowable. 



