128 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



SPECIES XXXIX.— C AREX ERICETORUM. PoU. 



Plate MDCLIV. 



Beich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. VIII. Tab. CCLXII. Fig. 636. 



Billoi, PI. Gall, ct Germ. Exsicc. No. G80. 



C. ciliata, Willd. Kunth, Enum. Plant. Vol. 11. p. 438. 



Rootstock scarcely csespitose, with short slender creeping branches, 

 and rather short stolons. Stem ascending, slightly curved but 

 not recumbent in fruit, slender, stiff, trigonous, smooth. Leaves 

 recurved-spreading, shorter than the stem, those at the base of the 

 flowering stems as long as those of the barren shoots, stiff, all nar- 

 rowly linear, nearly flat, rough on the edges, green, shining, not 

 glaucous. Male spike 1, subsessile, oblong, blunt, with the glumes 

 oval-oblong, obtuse, dark brown, with broad silvery margins and 

 apices. Female spikes 2 to 3, contiguous, subsessile, or the lower one 

 shortly stalked, erect, oval-ovoid, dense, 6- to 12-flowered. Bracts 

 scarcely sheathing or very shortly so, the lowest one not herbaceous, 

 purplish brown, with a subulate brown ciliated point, shorter than its 

 spike. Glumes of the female flowers broadly oval, very obtuse, dark 

 brown, with a concolorous midrib and broad silvery-white ciliated 

 margins about as long and as broad as the fruit. Fruit ascending, 

 indistinctly stipitate, oblanceolate, turbinate-trigonous, abruptly nar- 

 rowed at the base, with the 3 angles prominent, with a rib on each 

 of the 2 lower faces, finely pubescent, olive, with a purplish-brown 

 apex, abruptly acuminated into a scarcely perceptible entire mouth 

 or beak. Stigmas 3. Nut not stipitate, pale yellow, oval-elliptical, 

 bluntly trigonous, without a scabrous disk surrounding the base of 

 the style. 



On dry chalky banks. Very rare. In Britain the only known 

 station is on the Gogmagog Hills, rear Cambridge, where it was 

 gathered by Pi-ofcssor Babington and Mr. J. Ball in 1833, but re- 

 mained unnoticed until 18G1, It will probably be found elsewhere. 



England. Perennial. Early Summer. 



Rootstock mucli branched, extensively creeping, the branches 

 slender but frequently so short that a tuft is formed. Stems of the 

 British specimens 2 to 4 inches high, but on tlie Continent they are 

 often 6 inches to 1 foot long. IMale spike about J- inch long, very 

 thick, conspicuous from the broad silvery edges of the glumes; female 

 s])ikes about \ inch long. Nut about ^ inch long, with an extremely 

 short beak. Glumes of the female flowers rcmarkal)le for the minute 



