124 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



SPECIES XXXVr.— C AREX HUMILIS, Leyss. 



Plate MDCLI. 



Belch. Ic. Fl. Genii, et Helv, Vol. VHI. Tab. CCXXXTX. Fig. 595. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsico. No. 683. 



C. claudestiua, Good. Sm. Engl. Bot. ed. i. No. 2124; and Engl. Fl. Yol. IV. p. 94 

 Hook. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 517. Kttnlh, Enum. Plant. Vol. II. p. 470. 



Rootstock ca>spitose, with short thick creeping branches but no elon- 

 gate stolons. Stem ascending, rather thick, stiff, trigonous, smooth. 

 Leaves produced from the barren shoots and also sheathing the base 

 of the flowering stem, the lowest ones sharply recurved at the base 

 and spreading, the younger ones ascending, stiff, much longer than the 

 stem, very narrowly linear, deeply channelled, very rough on the 

 margins, dark shining green, not glaucous, Male spike 1, shortly 

 stalked, linear-fusiform. Female spikes 3 to 5, remote, on short 

 included stalks, erect, oblong, lax, and 2- to 3-flowered. Bracts 

 shortly sheathing Avith the sheath closed below and longly split at 

 the apex, the lowest one with or Avithout a very short herbaceous 

 subulate lamina, the others without any. Glumes of the female 

 flowers ovate-oblong, truncate or obtuse, not apiculate, wrapped 

 round the fruit, chestnut, with very broad silvery white scarious 

 margins, as long as and broader than the fruit. Fruit erect, indis- 

 tinctly stipitate, obovate, trigonous, not inflated, longly and gradu- 

 ally narrowed at the base, with 1 or 2 ribs on 2 of the faces, finely 

 pubescent, green, ultimately olive, gradually acuminated into an ex- 

 tremely short entire slightly inflexed point or beak. Stigmas 3. 

 JS^ut brown, stipitate, obovate-trigonous, apiculate, closely covered by 

 the perigynium. 



On downs and dry hills, chiefly on chalk or limestone soils. Local. 

 It occurs near Blandford, Dorset (Mr. L C. Mansel, 1868); Brean 

 Down, and St. Vincent's Rocks, Somerset; Salisbury Plain and else- 

 where, Wilts ; St. Vincent's Rocks and Clifton Downs, Gloucester; 

 and near Ross, Herefordshire. 



England. Perennial. Early Spring. 



Rootstock somewhat woody, with short creeping branches, each 

 producing a number of tuits at the apex. Flowering stems 1 to 4 

 inches high, nearly hidden amongst the long rigid leaves, with a few 

 sheathing leaves at the base, a little way above which the lowest fertile 

 S])ike is placed, and the others distributed over the stem. Male spiek 

 \ to ^ inch long, having a silver)' aj^pearance from the broad white 

 margins of the glumes. Female spikes ^ to i inch long, nearly 



