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deeply cleft and membranous at the margin, one of the chief charac- 

 ters which Smith insists upon for that species, but which Hoppe 

 neither expresses in his figure nor notices in his description, and it is 

 equally passed over by Koch and Reichenbach, and indeed by all the 

 authorities J though Wahlenberg, as early as 1803, said "ore bilobo 

 hyalino?'' 



The essential difference of C. speirostachya is a stoloniferous root, 

 a more slender smooth culm, narrower and shorter leaves and bracts 

 (the last never reaching to the male spike), female spikes often three, 

 the lower one subcylindrical (and sometimes compound), perigynium 

 greenish, with a narrower, often smooth, cylindrical rostrum, the ori- 

 fice of which is two-lobed, and membranous at the margins, the scales 

 dark brown. 



C. fulva has a csespitose root, grows in denser tufts, so as, Hoppe 

 says, to be easily distinguished at a distance, the leaves of a bright 

 green and with the bracts broader and longer (the last reaching to the 

 male spike), the female spikes commonly two and ovate; the culm 

 stouter, with three acute rough angles ; perigynium yellowish with a 

 broader conical rougher beak, which is bifid at the orifice, the scales 

 of a cinnamon colour. 



It would not be difficult to select specimens of each, having more 

 or less of these characters well marked, but I think there are inter- 

 mediate forms which it would be embarrassing to determine upon. 

 Cosson and Germain deny that the root of C. Hornschuchiana is sto- 

 loniferous. Smith describes the root of C. fulva and of C. speirosta- 

 chya as creeping. The roughness and smoothness of the culms vary. 

 The orifice of the perigynium in the specimens of C. fulva of Swartz 

 from Sweden, certainly is slightly membranous at the margin, and this 

 character perhaps more or less depends on age. The colour of the 

 perigynium in Swiss specimens of C. speirostachya from Davall, in 

 Smith's herbarium, is yellowish, and Desportes has a variety, ^.Jia- 

 vcscens, with " yellowish perigynium and scales," an example of which 

 I observe in Winch's herbarium from Swartz, sent as C. speirostachya. 



I suspect the stouter and rougher culm, the broader 8nd longer 

 bracts and the rougher rostrum of C. fulva, would be found, in a large 

 suite of specimens, to be unsatisfactory characters. I find in C. spei- 

 rostachya the number of female spikes to vary from one to three, and 

 in Davall's Swiss specimens, in one of those from Swartz from Sweden 

 in Smith's herbarium, and in one from Germany from Baron Romer 

 ill my own herbarium, they are from five to six, the upper ones crowd- 



