Luzula] JUNCACE^. 019 



other places about Newchurcli, as Bovdwood, &c. Extremely plentiful at Apse 

 castle, in several parts of which it forms large tufts in the sandy friable soil. 

 America. Wood between Ryde and Newport, and at Shanklin, D. Turner, Esq. 

 [Bembridge, A. G. More, Esq., Edrs.] 



W. Med.—WooA. between Swainston and Five Houses, 1845. la Mrs. Good- 

 win's grounds at W. Cowes. 



Root blackish, creeping, though less extensively than in L. pilosa, with dense 

 tufted fibres, sometimes interspersed with small fleshy knots or tubers. Stems 

 numerous, erect or inclining, from 8 or 10 to 16 inches high, round, leafy, solid, 

 smooth and striated. Leaves numerous, mostly shorter than the flowering stems, 

 erect, bright green, narrower in general than in L. pilosa, otherwise exactly simi- 

 lar, and, like them, more or less copiously sprinkled with fine, long, silky hairs, 

 that appear to have clung to them by accident; those on the stem shorter, and, 

 as Mr. Bicheno and Sir James Smith remark, perhaps in a trifling degree broader 

 than the rest and more hairy, particularly near the top of their long close sheaths. 

 Panicle terminal, cymose, of several compound mostly erect branches, but of 

 which two or three are usually reflexed or divaricate, especially after flowering; 

 the base of each included in a short, pale brown, slightly inflated sheath, with a 

 concave, membranous, taper-pointed bract immediately beneath and half-emhra- 

 cing the latter. Peduncles single-flowered, erect or partly divaricate. Flowers 

 paler than in that species, the segments of the perianth finely tapering, very acute, 

 nerveless, the 3 outer concave and keeled, the 3 inner flat. Bracts 2 or 3 close 

 under each flower, ovate, membranous, brownish, with thin, scariose and often 

 torn edges. Anthers erect, pale buff-yellow, almost white, shorter than the peri- 

 anth, spirally twisted after discharging the pollen, about as long as or rather 

 longer than the compressed ascenAin^ filaments.* Germen green, trigonate, 

 tapering into the long, erect, pellucid style; stigmas as long as or longer than the 

 style, upright and contorted. Capsule reddish brown and shining, acutely trique- 

 trous, the faces nearly plane ; simply acuminate, with no obtuse and conical con- 

 traction at the summit, and (including the hard, sharp, mucrouate apex) about as 

 long as the erect perianth-segments. Seeds roundish ovoid or nearly globose, light 

 brown, very smooth, polished and translucent,f reticulato-striate under a high 

 magnifier ; caruncle large, oblong-obtuse, oblique but not at all hooked, white and 

 diaphanous, expanded over the entire seed as a fine pellicle or tunic, and causing 

 the reticulated appearance just mentioned. 



The large, oblong, but not hooked crest of the seed is a sufficient and beautiful 

 distinction between this species and L. pilosa, to which it approaches very closely, 

 but when in fruit X. Forsteri may be detected by a certain character and aspect, 

 of which it is not very easy to convey an accurate description in writing. The 

 leaves, usually narrower than in L. pilosa, vary a good deal in breadth, and are 

 sometimes nearly as broad as in that species; the peduncles, too, are frequently 

 much deflexed after flowering, but never so copiously and so much bent down- 

 wards as in that species ; and whilst in flower L. Forsteri is pretty certainly dis- 

 tinguished by its more upright panicle. The root is less inclined to send out 

 suckers than in L. pilosa ; the whole plant is usually taller and more slender, and 

 the capsule more decidedly and acutely trigonate, and always very evidently 

 shorter than the acuminate segments of its perianth. 



X. Forsteri appears to come into flower just as L. pilosa begins to form cap- 

 sules, or about the middle of April, though partially much sooner, continuing 

 through May partly in flower and partly in fruit, when the seed-vessels of L. pilosa 

 are nearly perfected, and its flowers quite past for the season. 



This species was named by DeCandolle after [the late] Edward Forster, Esq., 

 F.L.S., who first detected its external characters, as did afterwards Mr. Bicheno 



* The comparative length of the anther and filament afibrd a good and con- 

 stant character between this species and L. pilosa. 



•f That is to say, when recent, for they become dull, wrinkled and opaque by 

 keeping. 



