4 ENGLISH fiOTANY. 



SPECIES I.— LUZULA FORSTERI. D.O. 



PiATE MDXLVII. 



Eeich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. IX. Tab. CCCLXXXII. 

 Billot, FI. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 

 Luciola Forsteri. Sm. Engl. Fl. Vol. II. p. 179. 

 Juncus Forsteri. Sm. Eng. Bot. ed. i. No. 1293. 



Ctespitose with very short slender stolons. Stems numerous. Radical 

 leaves linear, narrowed at both ends, nearly flat, rather soft, fringed with 

 long soft hairs ; stem leaves similar to the radical leaves, but shorter, 

 not much uan-ower than the radical leaves. Flowers solitary, in a rather 

 lax* umbellato-corymbose panicle; the lower branches elongate, once 

 cymosely branched at the apex, ascending and subsecund when in 

 fruit, not divaricate ; fruit pedicels ascending, twice or thrice as long as 

 the perianth leaves. Bracts lanceolate, acuminate-aristate. Perianth 

 leaves gradually acuminate, scarcely longer than the capsule, reddish- 

 brown, with pale margins and midrib. Filaments about as long as 

 the anthers. Capsule broadly ovate, trigonous, acuminate-acute. 

 Seeds roundish-ovoid, chestnut, with a long straight blunt whitish 

 appendage at the apex. 



In woods, thickets, and in hedgebanks; particularly in chalky soils. 

 Local, and confined to the south of England, extending from Devon, 

 Isle of Wight, and Kent, north to Cardigan, Worcester, and Essex. 



[England.] Perennial. Early Summer. 



Plant growing in tufts with numerous radical leaves 4 to 9 incnes 

 long by ^ to \ inch broad, the greater number of them not surviving 

 to the time when the fruit is ripe. Flowering stems numerous; at 

 first erect, afterwards lying over to one side, to 18 inches high when 

 in fruit. Stem leaves considerably sliorter than the radical leaves, with 

 long tightly-fitting closed sheaths. Panicle with the lower branches 

 in fruit 1 to 2 inches long, sheathed at the base, with a bract beneath 

 the sheath, forked at the apex, one of the branches of the fork a little 

 below the other, with a subsessile flower in the fork and a single one at 

 the termination of each of the branches of the fork, sometimes with 

 a third branch below the others; the upper branches 1 -flowered. 

 Bracteoles 2 or 3, close underneath the flowers, shorter than the peri- 

 anth segments, ovate-lanceolate ; the lower one sometimes acuminated ; 

 the upper acute or subobtuse. Perianth segments ^ inch long, very 

 acute, reddish-brown, with broad pale margins ; the midribs, especially 



* The inflorescence is described as it appears when in finiit, as all tbe species of 

 Luzula have it dense in the early stage. 



