cyi*e«acE/T;. 81 



inclies hi,s;h. Spike Jl to 1 inch long. Female flowers 3 to 10. Fruit 

 nearly \ inch long. 



Sometimes the spike is almost entirely composed of female flowers, 

 only 1 or 2 flowers at the apex being male. 



Flea Sedge. 



French, Carex puce. German, Flohsaniige Segge. 



Group C— RUPESTRES. 



Spikes terminal, solitary, simple, androgynous, male at th'e apex 

 and female at the base. Stigmas 3. Glumes of the female flowers 

 persistent. Fruit erect or spreading. Leaves nearly flat, except at 

 the apex. Bracts none, or scarious and sometimes with a setaceous 

 or short foliaceous point. 



SPECIES IV.— CAREX RUPESTRIS. All. 



Plate MDXCm. 



Feich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. VIII. Tab. CXCVIII. Fig. 551. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Essicc. No. 2754. 



Rootstock creeping or shortly cliordorrhizal,* with, elongate stolons. 

 Stems filiform, trigonous, erect or curved, slightly rough towards the 

 apex. Leaves nearly as long as the stem, linear, flat, rigid, recurved, 

 green, not glaucous, with triangular rough points. Spikes terminal, 

 solitary, simple, androgynous, male towards the apex, female towards 

 the base, cylindrical, with a glumelike bract at the base, having 

 sometimes a short setaceous point. Glumes oval-ovate, subobtuse, 

 those of the male flowers reddish-brown, those of the female flowers 

 mucronate, darker brown, persistent, about as long as the fruit. Fruit 

 substipitate, pale brown, always erect, lanceolate-elliptical, ovoid- 

 trigonous, acuminated at each end, abruptly acuminated at the apex 

 into a short subcylindrical smooth truncate beak. Nut j^ale, broadly- 

 elliptical, trigonous. 



On rocks and dry hillocks in alpine situations. Very local. Dis- 

 covered in 1836, by Dr. Dickie, in Glen Callater: the plant grows 

 in abundance on the east side of the waterfall in the Cori-ie of Loch 

 Ceander, which opens out of Glen Callater; I have gathei'ed it also 



* I use the term chordorrhizal, as distinguished from creeping, in those cases 

 where the lengthened rootstock produces numerous flowering stems one before the 

 other from its sides, restricting the term creeping to where there is only 1 or rarely 

 2 flowering stems from each branch of the rootstock. 

 VOL. X. in. 



