CTPEBACE*. 61 



SPECIES X— SCIRPUS HOLOSCHCENUS. Linn. 



Plate MDXCVII. 



Feich. Ic. Fl. Germ, ct Helv. Vol. VIII. Tab. CCCXVIII. Fig. 471. 

 Holoschoeuus Linntei, Belch. Fl. Germ. Excurs. p. 76 ; and Ic. 1. c. p. 45. 

 II. vulgaris, L!nk, Hort. Berol. Vol. I. p. 293. 



Isolepis Holoschoenus, Eom. & Schultes ; Hooh. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 493. 

 Kunth, Enum. Plant. Vol. II. p. 200. 



Caespitose. Rootstock grov?ing in large tufts, its branches shortly 

 creeping, thick, with the stems placed close together one before the 

 other. Stems numerous, stout, stiff, cylindrical, finely striate, leafless ; 

 basal sheaths several, at length connected down the front by a net- 

 work of fibres, the uppermost or two or three of the uppermost ones 

 terminated by a more or less elongate rigid narrowly linear semi- 

 cylindrical channelled lamina with scabrous margins : rarely -without 

 leaves. Spikes numerous, ovate, combined into dense sessile and 

 stalked heads, which are arranged in a simple or slightly compound 

 umbellate pseudo-lateral panicle. Bracts unequal, the lowest one 

 much longer than the panicle, and resembling a continuation of the 

 stem; the second one also frequently exceeding the panicle, but 

 sometimes shorter than it. Glumes roundish-obovate, subobtuse, 

 emarginate, mucronate, keeled, variegated with brown and green, 

 ciliated, scabrous. Stigmas 3, elongate. Hypogynous bristles none 

 ("4 to 6," Reich.). Nut very minute, oval-subglobular, mucronate, 

 compressed-triquetrous, blackish, very finely transversely rugose under 

 an ordinary lens. 



In damp sandy places. Very rare. Braunton Burrows, North 

 Devon, about half a mile to the north of the lighthouse, in hollows 

 among the sandhills which are wet only in winter. It has been 

 recorded from several other counties, as Dorset, Hants, and Somerset, 

 but there is no recent authority for its occurrence in any of these 

 places. Mr. T. B. Flower informs me that it certainly does not now 

 grow at Watchet. 



England. Perennial. Autumn. 



A rigid rushlike plant, varying considerably, or perhaps really con- 

 sisting of two or three subspecies. The British form is from 2 to 3 

 feet high, usually only the uppermost sheath with a lamina, which 

 varies much in length, and has a white stripe down the middle of the 

 upper side. Heads numerous, about the size of black currants, one or 

 two of the uppermost ones sessile, the rest on stalks, of which tlie 

 lowest are from 1 to 3 inches long and simple, or the longest ones 



