56 Mr. James Hardy on Carex Muricata. 



Magnol (Botanicum Monspelienses, p. 117, 1688) merely 

 confirms Bauhin's statement. 



The transition is abrupt in the pursuit in the history of a 

 harsh, uncomely grass, from the rude wilds of the Border- 

 side, and the ever-circling present, back to the dawn of 

 modern culture and scientific ideas, three hundred years ago, 

 in the grand old cities of Italy and France, " where all good 

 literature was professed." But there are other plants of as 

 little mark or likelihood, if we were to follow them through the 

 heavy tomes in which they are recorded, that have a lifetime 

 not less lengthened and varied ; intermingling with the course 

 of great events, and the actions and thoughts of wise and 

 venerated men : and with places and tracts of country that 

 form some of the stand-points of history, share some of the 

 interest and a reflection from their glory. 



Linnseus in the " Flora Suecica," gives Pigg Starr, i.e., 

 prickly sedge, as the Swedish name of this Carex. Starr, in 

 Swedish, is strong, robust, hard; and in this country, in the 

 North of England, is still used for stiff; in which sense it also 

 occurs in Gawin Douglas. Still more interesting it is to 

 know that the term, as a substantive, is still, in Lancashire, 

 applied to sand-re^ds, and apparently likewise, to rough 

 kinds of sedge. " Stare, sedge, grass of the fens." (Halli- 

 well's Archaic and Prov. Words, II. p. 798). " Bent or 

 starr, on the north-west coast of England, and especially in 

 Lancashire, is a coarse, reedy shrub — like ours perhaps — of 

 some importance formerly, if not now, on the sandy blowing 

 lands of those counties. Its fibrous roots give some cohesion 

 to the siliceous soil. By the 15 and 16 Geo. II. , c. 33rd, 

 ' plucking up and carrying away starr or bent, or having it in 

 possession, within five miles of the sand hills, was punishable 

 by fine, imprisonment, and whipping.' " (Moor's Suffolk 

 Words). 



Our plant is not typical of C. muricata, in its luxuriant 

 state, but is a dwarf form, the Var. of Smith, Flora Brit., 

 and Eng. Flora ; represented in Micheli and Scheuchzer's 

 figures, there cited ; and the term " Greater Prickly Carex," 

 got, 1 suppose, from its resemblance to C. vulpina {Great 

 Carex), is inapplicable to any of the examples. 



The herbage of C. muricata, being more green and succu- 

 lent than in most sedges, is cropped both by cows and sheep. 

 This happens also to C. vulpina, which, in sheep pastures on 

 the sea-coast, is often entirely eaten down. 



