156 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



2 feet hi,2:li. Male spike ^^ to 1 inch long. Female spikes § to ^ inch 

 long. Fi-uit I; inch long. 



Var. 3 has the stems 3 to 8 inches long; male spike \ to -^ inch 

 long ; female spikes ^ to i inch long. 



A very well marked species, distinguished from all the preceding 

 Carices of tlie Fulvaj section by its channelled leaves, approximate or 

 contiguous spikes, and bracts with short sheaths and very long laminn3. 



Sometimes when there are 4 spikes, the lowest one is distant from 

 the others, but in that case the 3 upper female spikes are contiguous 

 to each other and to the male spike. 



Long-bracteated Sedge. 



French, Garex etlre. German, Ausgedehnte Segge. 



SPECIES LVIL— CAREX PLAVA. Linn. 

 Plates MDCLXXII. MDCLXXHI. MDCLXXIV. 

 Hoolc. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 511. 



Rootstock densely csespitose, without stolons. Stem ascending, 

 slender, not flexuous nor wiry, but rather firm, bluntly trigonous, 

 smooth, or slightly rough at the apex. Leaves longer or shorter 

 than the stem, rather firm, linear or narrowly linear, tlat or very 

 slightly channelled, rough on the margins, yellowish-green, not 

 glaucous. Male spike 1, sometimes with a second small one at the 

 base, sessile or more or less longly stalked, fusiform-cylindrical, blunt, 

 sometimes androgynous, with oblong-obtuse orange-bro^vn or chestnut- 

 brown glumes, with green or concolorous midribs and concolorous or 

 narrowly pale margins. Female spikes 1 to 4, contiguous or appi-oxi- 

 mate or the lowest one remote, the lowest one usually above the middle 

 of the stem, on a short included or rarelv slightly exserted stalk, the 

 upper ones sessile or subsessile, ascending or spreading-ascending or 

 spreading, roundish or ovoid or oblong-ovoid, more rarely oblong, dense 

 or very dense, many -flowered. Lowest bract shortly sheathing, with a 

 very long foliaceous lamina equalling or more or less longly exceeding 

 the apex of the male spike and ultimately spreading or spreading- 

 reflexed; upper bracts not sheathing, and with the lamma shorter 

 than or exceeding the male spike. Glumes of the female flowers 

 ovate, obtuse or subobtuse, not cuspidate nor mucronate, reddish- 

 brown with a green midrib and concolorous margins, ultimately 

 wholly pale brown or nearly white, shorter and narrower than the 

 fruit. Fruit squarrosely-spreading, not stipitate, rhombic-elliptical, 

 or oblong-obovate, regularly or obliquely turbinate-ovoid or turbinate- 

 trigonous, very greatly inflated, with several rather strong ribs, the 



