CYPEUACEiE. 129 



cilia^ which fpino;e their apices; these cilia; are best seen while the 

 plant is in flower, as they usually disappear by the time the fruit is 

 ripe. 



On the Continent this ]ilant is cliicfly found in sandy soil, but 

 in the station near the Woolstrect, Canibrid^i^e, where I was shown 

 the plant by Professor Babington in 1863, it grows on dry chalky 

 soil. 



The lesser figure in Sowerby's drawing of Carcx prtecox for the 

 first edition of " English Botany," has been drawn from C. Erice- 

 torum, and afterwards altered by Smith. It may be presumed that 

 Sowerby had gathered the plant somewhere near London, but there 

 are no specimens in his herbarium in the British ^Museum. 



In cultivation the plmit in Balmuto Garden forms a large rather 

 loose tuft. 



Silvery Heath Sedge. 



French, Carex dcs brwjcres. German, Houle-Segge. 



SPECIES XL.— CAR EX PR.ffilCOX. Jacq. 



Plate MDCLV. 



Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. VIII. Tab. CCLXI. Fig. 634 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exslcc. No. G81. 



Rootstock not ca?spitose, with short or elongate slender creeping 

 branches, and short or elongate stolons. Stem erect or ascending, 

 nearl}' straight in fruit, slender, stiff, obtusely trigonous, smooth, or 

 slightly rough at the apex. Leaves recurved-spreading or ascending, 

 shorter than the stem, those at the base of the flowering stems as long 

 as those of the barren shoots ; all stifi', narrowly linear, nearly flat, 

 rough on the edges, green, shining, not glaucous. Male spike 1, 

 very shortly stalked, oblong-fusiform, subacute, with the glumes 

 lanceolate-oblong, acute or subacute, orange-brown, concolorous or 

 with very narrow silvery margins and apices. Female spikes 2, more 

 rarely 3, contiguous, sessile or subsessile, or the lowest one shortly 

 stalked and occasionally a little way below the others, erect, oblong- 

 ovoid or oblong, dense, 8- to many -flowered. Bracts scarcely sheathing 

 or very shortly so, the lowest one scarious, very pale bro-wn, mth a 

 herbaceous strip on the back ending in a subulate or setaceous sub- 

 ciliated lamina usually equalling its spike, but never extending to the 

 summit of the male spike. Glumes of the female flowers ovate, acu- 

 minate or cuspidate, acute, reddish-brown, with a green midrib and 

 concolorous margins, which are not ciliated, about as long and as 

 broad as the fruit. Fruit ascending-erect, indistinctly stipitate, rhom- 

 Ijic-oblanceolate, trigonous, gradually narrowed at the base, the 3 



VOb. X. s 



