120 85. CYPERACE.t:. 



on their coast line ; but only inland stations having been 

 recorded, they are rejected for the present. Dr. NeiU re- 

 liorted C. distans from Orkney and Shetland; but Mr. 

 Syme and Mr. Edmondston mention C. binervis, and not 

 C. distans, in those isles. Dr. Bromfield writes of this 

 and the preceding species, in these words : " Are not C. 

 fulva and C. distans simply forms of one and the same 

 species ? The differences, when fairly weighed, are very 

 slight. Both inhabit the sea coast or inland places, fresh 

 or salt-marsh ground, indifferently" (Phytol. iii. 10G7). 

 I have myself never found undoubted C. distans far from 

 the shore, although it may have been seen a mile or two 

 inland. Neither, on the other hand, have I seen C. fulva 

 ever having more the appearance of a littoral plant than 

 C. vulgaris or C. glauca; that is, as inland plants which 

 can grow down to the coast or shore, although no special 

 tendency to inhabit the shore may be traced in them. To 

 my view, indeed, C. distans is less easily distinguished 

 from C. binervis, than from C. fulva. In Babington's 

 Manual we find the following series of names ui succes- 

 sion to each other, — flava, OEderi, fulva, extensa, punc- 

 tata, distans, binervis, laevigata, — from which it seems 

 reasonable to assume, that the Author of the Manual 

 looks upon distans as being next of kin to binervis ; al- 

 though the position of extensa, after fulva instead of 

 preceding it, might be used as a counter-argument, — as 

 one to show that ideas of affinity and resemblance had 

 less influence in suggesting the series, t^an might be in- 

 ferred from the positions of the other names. 



