256 



CAR 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL ; 



CAR 



glaucous underneath. It is not uncommon in woods and 

 hedges ; flowering in May and June. 



88. Carex Strigosa ; Loose Sedge. Spikes filiform, loose, 

 recurved ; sheaths long, nearly equalling the peduncle ; cap- 

 sules oblong, subtriquetrous, acute ; leaves broad. It 

 grows in woods and hedges ; as in Witham and Nokewoods, 

 Oxfordshire ; flowering from April to June. 



89. Carex Sylvatica ; Wood Sedge. Sheaths shorter than 

 the peduncles ; spikes filiform, loosely pendulous ; capsules 

 ovate, awned and beaked ; root creeping, and throwing out 

 from the joints. Its pendent spikes, the elliptic bend of its 

 stem, and the pale yellow green of its leaves, render it one 

 of the most elegant ornaments of our woods. It flowers in 

 May and June. 



90. Carex Recurva ; Heath Sedge. Spikes crowded, 

 peduncled, cylindric, rather pendulous ; male terminal ; 

 capsules imbricate, rather obtuse. Culms erect, three- 

 cornered, with obsolete angles ; leaves and stem sea-green. 

 Found in meadows, woods, and heaths ; flowering in 

 May and June. 



91. Carex Juncea. Spikes very remote ; male longer than 

 the females, which are subsessile j capsules bifid, three- 

 cornered, smooth ; seed three-cornered. Culm a foot high ; 

 leaves scarcely two lines broad. 



92. Carex Leptostachys. Spikes sexually distinct ; males 

 single; females peduncled, remote, pendulous, filiform ; 

 capsules remote, entire at the end. Native of Germany. 



93. Carex Chinensis. Spikes erect ; male terminating ; 

 females peduncled, four ; capsules acuminate. -This is a 

 span high, and a native of China. 



94. Carex Riparia ; Common Sedge. Spikes oblong, 

 acute ; scales of the males lanceolate, those of the females 

 acuminate and awned ; capsules lanceolate-ovate, with two 

 teeth at the point. This is the largest and most common of 

 all the Sedges ; its spikes, especially the lowermost of the 

 female ones, frequently become branched ; the capsules are 

 large, somewhat inflated, pointed and slightly bifid at the 

 extremity. It flowers in April and May ; and is common by 

 the sides of ditches, lakes, and rivers. The glass-makers of 

 Italy use the leaves to bind their wine-flasks ; the chair- 

 Tnakers to bottom their chairs ; and the coopers, in heading 

 their casks, in the same manner as the stalks of the Scirpus 

 Lacustris is used in England. 



35. Carex Paludosa ; Sliarp Sedge. Spikes oblong, blunt- 

 ifch ; scales of the males blunt, of the females lanceolate ; 

 capsules ovateslanceolate, somewhat toothed at the tip. This 

 plant, which is so very common with us, does not appear 

 to have been noticed by Linneus. It is found in marshes, 

 and by the sides of ditches ; flowering in May and June. 



9G. Carex Gracilis ; Slender-spiked Sed^e. Spikes fili- 

 form ; flowers two-styled ; mouth of the capsules very entire. 

 The female flowers are always digynious. 



97- Carex Ampullacea ; Bottle Sedge. Spikes filiform ; 

 males more slender ; females round, upright ; capsules in- 

 flated, globose, awn-beaked, divaricate. Root creeping 

 very much ; leaves glaucous, upright, narrow, longer than 

 the culm, rough on a great part of the edges and keel. It 

 grows in fens, and flowers in May. Near London it is not 

 common, but may be found in abundance at Virginia Water. 



Carica ; a genus of the class Dinecia, order Decandria. 

 GENERIC CHARACTER. Male. Calix : scarce manifest ; it 

 has, however, five very short sharp teeth. Corolla : mono- 

 petalous, funnel-form ; tube slender, very long, gradually 

 slenderer downwards ; border five-parted ; divisions lanceo- 

 late-linear, obtuse, obliquely and spirally re volute. Sta- 

 mina : filamenta ten, in the top of the tube of the corolla ; 



the five alternate ones inferior ; antherae oblong, fixed to 

 the filamenta on the inner side. Hermaphrodite. Calif : peri- 

 anth very small, five-toothed, permanent ; teeth ovate, acute, 

 spreading. Corolla.- five-parted; parts lanceolate, sharp, 

 erect below the middle, but reflected and twisted above. 

 Stamina; filamenta ten ; five alternate shorter subulate, all 

 united by a membrane at the base ; anthera? ovate, erect, 

 two-valved, fertile. Germen : ovate ; style none ; stigmas 

 three or five, broad, flat, expanding, multifid ; segments 

 very short, blunt. Pericarp : berry very large, angulated 

 with three or five furrows, unilocular, fleshy. Seeds: nume- 

 rous, ovate, green, very smooth, truncated, nestling in the 

 middle of the berry. ESSENTIAL CHARACTER. Male, Calix: 

 very small, five-toothed. Corolla: five-parted, funnel- 

 form. Filamenta : in the tube of the corolla, alternately 

 shorter. Hermaphrodite. Calix : five-toothed. Corolla : five- 

 parted. Stigmas : five. Berry : one-celled, many-seeded. 

 These plants, being natives of hot countries, will not thrive 

 in England, unless they are preserved in a warm stove ; where 

 there are such conveniences of proper height to contain the 

 plants, they deserve a place as well as almost any of the 

 plants which are cultivated for ornament : for when they are 

 grown to a large size, their strong upright stems make a noble 

 appearance, as they are garnished on every side near the top 

 with large shining leaves, spreading out near three feet all 

 round the stems ; the flowers of the male sort come out in 

 clusters on every side ; and the fruit of the female growing 

 round the stalks between the leaves, being so different from 

 any thing of European production, may entitle them to the 

 care of the curious. They are easily propagated by seeds, 

 which are annually brought in plenty from the West Indies. 

 These should be sown in a hot-bed early in the spring, that 

 the plants may obtain strength before the autumn ; when 

 they become nearly two inches high, they should be each 

 transplanted into a separate small pot, filled with a light 

 gentle loamy soil, and plunged into a hot-bed of tanner's 

 bark, carefully shading them from the sun till they have 

 taken root ; after which they must be treated in the same 

 manner as other tender plants from the same country ; but as 

 they have soft herbaceous stalks, and abound with a milky 

 juice, they must not have too much water, for they are fre- 

 quently killed with moisture : there should also be great care 

 taken, when these plants are shifted from small pots into 

 larger, to preserve the whole ball of earth to their roots, for 

 they rarely survive their being left bare. As they grow, they 

 will require larger pots, and when they are too tall to remain 

 under frames, they must be placed in the tan-bed of the 

 bark-stove, where they should constantly remain ; they must 

 have but little water during the winter, and in the summer 

 small quantities, but frequently repeated, should be given. 

 In the West Indies these trees are easily propagated by 

 layers as well as by seeds. The species are, 



1. Carica Papaya ; Common Papaw Tree. Lobes of the 

 leaves sinuated. It rises with a thick, soft, herbaceous stem, 

 to the height of eighteen or twenty feet, naked till within 

 two or three feet of the top, and having marks of the fallen 

 leaves great part of its length ; the leaves are on foot-stalks 

 nearly two feet long, the lower ones nearly horizontal, the 

 upper ones erect. The whole plant abounds with a milky 

 acrid juice, which is esteemed good for the ringworm; the 

 stem of the plant, and also the footstalks of the leaves, are 

 hollow in the middle. The male flowers stand in loose clusters, 

 are of a pure white, and have an agreeable odour; sometimes 

 they are succeeded by sm;ill fruit, about the si/.e ami shape of 

 a Catherine pear. The flowers of the female, or rather herma- 

 phrodite Papaw, also come out between the leaves, toward 



