170 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



lli\le JNIoss, near Altringliam, Mr. J. Sidebotliam; " Congleton, Mr. 

 E. Wilson" (Bab.); north-western margin of Oakmere, Mr. Cliarles 

 iSailey. 



England. Perennial. Early Summer. 



Stems 1 to 2 feet high, slender. Leaves -jV to -J- inch broad. Ter- 

 minal male spike 1 to li inch long. Lowest female spike 1 to 2 

 inches long. Fruit Jr inch long. 



A most puzzling plant, which I have been obliged to throw into the 

 form of a i^pecies from being quite unable to decide whether it should 

 be referred to C. ampuUacea or to C. vesicaria, though I believe it to 

 be much nearer the former, and probabl}' a marked variety of it. 



The leaves are precisely similar to those of C. ampullacea, but the 

 stems are more triangular, and are decidedly rough on the margins 

 beneath the lowest spike. The terminal male spike in all the speci- 

 mens I have seen is conspicuously stalked. The female spikes have the 

 fruit much more lax and not at all squarrosely spreading, the fruit 

 is graduall}- attenuated into the beak, and not abruptly so as in C. 

 ampullacea, but the nut is indistinguishable from that of the last- 

 named species. 



From C. vesicai'ia it differs in the branches of the rootstock not 

 being chordorrhizal ; the leaves being much narrower, channelled, and 

 glaucous above, not flat and green on both-sides; in the stem havmg 

 much blunter angles, which are less rough and that only for a very 

 little wa}' below the uppermost spike. The female spikes of C. invo- 

 luta are more slender and more tapering than those of C. vesicaria, 

 and the fruit is much smaller and rather more shining. The nut is 

 nuich shorter and broader in proportion. 



Mr. Sidebotham informs me that C. ampullacea and C. vesicaria 

 do not grow together at tlie Hale Moss station for C. involuta, so that 

 it cannot well be a hybrid between these two species. F'urther, the 

 nuts are perfectly developed, though some fresh ripe ones received 

 from j\Ir. Sidebotham refused to germinate, to my great disappoint- 

 ment, as 1 hoped to have seen the plant in cultivation before writing 

 this description 



Involute-leaved Sedge. 



SPECIES LXV.— C AREX VESICARIA. Liim. 



Plate JIDCLXXXn. 



Bekh. Ic. n. Germ, ct Helv. Vol. Vm. Tab. CCLXXVI. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1575. 



Rootstock creeping, with short someA\-hat chordorrhizal branches and 

 short stolons. Stem erect, leafy in the lower half, i-ather slender, scarcely 

 wiry, acrtely triquetrous, very rough in the upper half. Leaves as 

 lonnf as or longer than the stem, linear or broadl}- linear, flat, keeled, 



