Carex.] cyperace^: 5J9 



tapering into a long, rough-edged, paler-coloured and triquetrous point, rounded 

 at the apex. Spikes ovate, from 2 to 8 (or 9, Hook.), drooping, on simple 

 or sligluly branched, furrowed, compressed peduncles, that are rough in 

 various degrees with minnle subappressed bristles, and extremely unequal in 

 length. Glumes ovato-lanceolate, concave, membranaceous, pale at the base, 

 blackish green in their upper half, with a prominent keel-like rib. Nut reddish 

 brown, obovate, attenuated downwards, smooth and somewhat striated, the angles 

 prominent, with depressed intermediate faces, obtuse, tipped with the base of the 

 deciduous style, and surrounded by a tuft of pure while compressed hairs, twice, 

 or, as in my specimens, thrice the length of the glumes. Except in its rather 

 greater elongation, compared with its breadth in the plants before me, the form of 

 the seed is well depicted by Sir Wm. Hooker and Mr. Leighton. 



Tribe III. Cariceje. 



Flowers imperfect. 



VII. Caeex, Linn. Sedge. 



" Spikelets several-flowered; flowers imperfect, the two kinds 

 in the same or in different spikelets. Glumes imbricated on all 

 sides. — Barren floivers : — Stamens 2 — 3. — Fertile flowers : — Peri- 

 gynium of 1 piece, urceolate enclosing the pistil. Style 1. Stig- 

 mas 2 — 3. Achene compressed or triquetrous, very rarely (in C. 

 microglochin) with an hypogynous bristle, included within the 

 persistent perigynium* (which is therefore in this genus supposed 

 to form the external part of the fruit)." — Br. Ft. 



A vast genus, of which species occur in every part of the world, but are most 

 numerous in the colder half of the temperate zones, very few being indigenous to 

 tropical countries. Many of them are alpine. Of very limited utility, they are 

 at least not injurious to man in an agricultural point of view. 



" i. Spike simple solitary. Stigmas 2. 

 "* Difecious." — Bab. Man. 



[?] 1. Cdioica,!^. Creeping Separate-headed Carex. "Spike- 

 let simple dioecious, fruit mostly ascending ovate shortly acumi- 

 nated rough at the margin upwards, leaves and stem smoothish, 

 root creeping." — Br. Fl. p. 486. E. B. t. 543. 



Fl. May, June. 11. 



E. Med. — In a moist meadow immediately behind the Wilderness ; pointed out 



* It may here be observed that the exact form of the fruit (perigyne and seed) 

 in the different species of Carex is with difiiculty conveyed by words, however 

 laboured the descriptions may be. The seed itself is but little liable to vary in 

 shape, and may therefore in general be pretty accurately described ; but the peri- 

 gyne is subject to great variation in form, from compression and the degree of 

 inflation producing angles of greater or less acuteness on the same spike. The 

 length, breadth and roughness of the beak, when present, and even the integrity 

 or division of its apex, exhibit puzzling gradations for accurate definition ; nor 

 do the number and position of its ribs appear more determinate, being for the 

 most part indistinctly marked or partially obliterated. 



