MORPHOLOGY OF CAREX AND OTHER MONOCOTYLEDONS. 163 
escape observation. It is very os in Carex glauca, paniculata, 
rigida, pendula, eciabaion: remota, In Carex glauca it becomes 
irmer in texture, and fre uently pouisines nerves, and by studying 
this plant alone the true nature ss the utriculus may e learnt,* for 
if a sufficient number of specimens be examined the passage of the 
second bract from an echreoueike sheath to the urceolate two-nerved 
which the utriculus takes more or less in so many species ; and when 
this second bract has its insertion thus higher it frequently bears in 
its axil an tithe e usually Ana or less imperfect. 
he normal form of the female flower of Carex consists of an 
outer biact, apparently within the axil of which is the fruit, consisting 
of utriculus and nut; but this outer bract is never present, if the 
sertion higher up on the axis ; in this and usu lia- 
ceous bract at the base of the spike is correlative 3 the smaller bract 
milf present in e utriculus, and the ary sheathing 
Now if we suppose that the endieth of the stalk which bears 
the feos spike (of, say, Carex glauca) be arrested, we should 
have, first, the foliaceous bract situ ate on the main axis; secondly, the 
nascent in the form of a branch which in its growth forces its way 
hrough the mouth of the utriculus, and becomes the axis on which 
are stunts several flowers, each of the female ones furnished with outer 
bract, utriculus, oe rong front of the latter the peculiar growth 
allu ded to above. r this view the ie of female flowers 
becomes compound ray ita ’ildioaenenas indete 
ure of the seta (usually so setae) in Carex microglochin, 
oe nn acne in all species of the genus Uneinia, is similarl 
* The transformation ma well traced in Carex riparia, where at the 
base of, I believe, every os pe spike oat be found a fertile flower, with an open 
gee or utriculus next the main axis, alternate with and opposite to the outer 
“2 
