68 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Style not dilated. Stem stout, leafy; stem leaves with short sheaths 

 and a long sedgelike lamina. 



SPECIES XIV.— SCIRPUS MARITIMUS. Linn. 



Plate ilDCI. 



Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 25-57. 



Not ca?spitose. Rootstock extensively creeping, its branches fre- 

 quently swollen into tubers, with the stems placed in tufts or solitary, 

 usually at distant intervals one from the other. Stems few, stout, 

 firm, triangular throughout, leafy on the lower half. Leaves few, 

 sheathing, linear, channelled, keeled. Spikes several or few, ovate- or 

 cylindrical-fusiform in fruit, large, aggregated into stalked heads of 

 from 2 to 5 spikes and solitaiy, arranged in a simple umbellato- 

 corymbose terminal subunilateral panicle, or sometimes the spikes all 

 sessile, from 3 to 12 in a terminal subunilateral head; or rarely re- 

 duced to 1 sessile spike. Bracts unequal, 1 or 2, or even 3 of the 

 lowest resembling the leaves, the lowest longer than the panicle. 

 Glumes oblong-ovate, deeply notched, aristate, dark chestnut-brown, 

 smooth or pubescent; lobes acute. Stigmas 3 or 2. Hypogynous 

 bristles 1 to 6, much shorter than the nut ("sometimes absent," 

 Kiinth). Nut obovate or I'oundish-obovate, truncate or emarginate, 

 shortly mucronate, compressed-trigonous when there are 3 stigmas, 

 plano-convex when there are 2, thickly and finely punctate, shining. 



Var. a, umhellatus. Reich. 



Heidi. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. VIII. Tab. CCCX. 



Flowers in an umbellato-corymbose panicle, the lower fascicles 



stalked. 



Var. 0, cowpactiis. " Krock." Reich. 



Reich. Ic. 1. c. Tab. CCCXI. Fig. 727. 



Spikes in a head, all sessile. Plant usually smaller than in 

 var. a. 



In brackish ditches and salt marshes, chiefly by the sides of tidal 

 rivers, rarely occurring inland. Common, and generally distributed 

 in England. More rare in Scotland, and not reaching north of 

 Aberdeen, Ross, and Argyle. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Late Summer, Autumn. 



Rootstock about as thick as a crowquill, black, sometimes swollen at 

 intervals into knobs or tubers from the size of a pea to that of a damson 



