IScJ ENGLISH BOTANY. 



SPECIES XLVI.-CAREX CAPILLARIS. Linn. 



Plate MDCLXII. 



Br.ich. Ic. Fl. Genu, ct Helv. Vol. VIII. Tab. CCXLI. Fig. GOO. 

 JJilloi, Fl. Gall, ct Germ. Exsicc. No. 2962. 



Rootstock rather long, ctespitose at the apex, without stolons. Stem 

 erect, usually slightly curved, slender, rather stiff, very bluntly trigo- 

 nous, smooth, leafy at the base, and usually with one leaf sheathing 

 it up to the middle. Leaves erect, much shorter than the stem, firm, 

 narrowly linear, flat, rough on the margins, green not glaucous. Male 

 Pl)ike 1, rather shortly stalked, clavate-liuear, shorter than the uppermost 

 female spikes. Female spikes 2 to 4, approximate, 2 or sometimes 3 of 

 them from one sheath, on long capillary greatly exserted stalks, 

 inclined or pendulous, oblong, lax, 3- to 10-flowered. Bracts sheath- 

 ing, the lowest one with a short linear foliaceous lamina equalling or 

 extending beyond the male spike, the uppermost one small and wholly 

 scarious. Glumes of the female flowers oblong-oval, obtuse or 

 obliquely truncate and apiculate, very pale orange brown, with a green 

 midrib and bi'oad white scarious margins and apices, ultimately nearly 

 white, shorter than but as broad as the fruit, caducous. Fruit ascend- 

 ing, substipitate, oval-lanceolate, acuminate at each end, pointed, 

 bluntly trigonous, moderately inflated, not ribbed, quite smooth, 

 slightly shining, olive-green, more or less tinged with orange-brown, 

 gradually narrowed into a short slightly deflexed entire small- and 

 membranous-mouthed nearly smooth beak, about one-third of the 

 length of the rest of the fruit. Stigmas 3. Nut very pale olive, 

 elliptical-obovate, narrowed at the base, triquetrous, abruptly acumi- 

 nated into a small apiculus. 



On damp grassy places and ledges of rock on mountains, especially 

 those composed of mica-slate and Ihnestone. Not uncommon. In 

 England it occurs in Teesdale, both on the York and Durham side 

 of the Tees, and perhaps in Ciunberland. In Scotland on a hill near 

 Hartfell, Dumfries; frequent on the Clova and Breadalbane Moun- 

 tains in Forfar and Perth ; in Aberdeenshire it is scarce, but it 

 occurs in Glen Callater, on Little Craigindal, and on Craig Koynach, 

 at the Castlcton of Braemar; it grows also in Ross and Sutherland, 

 and is said to have been found in Shetland, but is absent from Orkney. 

 England, Scotland. Perennial. Summer. 



Plant growing in small tufts with a short oblique rhizome thickly 

 clothed with tlie decayed bases of the leaves of former years, and 

 dividing at the apex into several very short branches clothed in a simihir 



