Ca7-e.l-.] CYPERACE/E. 551 



Culms erect, a foot or 18 inches liigh, very slender, triquetrous, a little rough at 

 the angles near the spikes only. Leaves few, bright somewhat glaucous-green, 

 very narrow, stifBsh, channelled and acute, roughish on the edges, with long 

 sheathing bases, usually as long as or longer than the culms. Spike solitary, ter- 

 minal, of several ovate, acute, whitish brown spikelets, placed near each other in 

 no regular order, not so large as barleycorns. Bracteas linear, finely tapering, 

 dilated at the base into a brown membranous appendage, enclosing the lowermost 

 spikel^t ; very variable in length, often overtopping the spike, at other times 

 scarcely reaching to its summit: each spikelet is subtended by a similar bractea, 

 but without the long leafy point of the general one. Glumes much like the par- 

 tial bracleas, but with a less dilated membranous border, and far shorter points, 

 two or three at the top of the spikelet bearing barren, the rest mostly, though not 

 always, containing fertile, flowers. Anthers yellow, awned. Stigmas 2, long, 

 white, and as well as the style hairy. Fruit yellowish brown when ripe, truly 

 ovate, plano-convex, smooth and shining, a little hollow on the flat inner side, 

 with several pale ribs on ihe outer convex surface, suddenly tapering at the sum- 

 mit into a short, acutely cloven, serrated beak, equal in length to the glumes: in 

 all the specimens I have examined the edges of the fruit are quite smooth, with a 

 narrow, not dilated, border, of a bright green near the apex. Seed pale brown, 

 roundish ovate, lenticular (not at all triquetrous), shining, finely punctate. 



The fig. in Fl. Danica, iii. tab. 371, referred to by Hudson himself, is certainly 

 not this species, but may be an indifferent one of C.flava. Schkuhr's figure is a 

 professed copy of Goodenough's, and, being coloured from description only, is very 

 unlike nature. 



4. C. intermedia, Gooden. Soft Brown Carex. " Lower and 

 upper spikelets fertile, the interniediate ones sterile, all crowded 

 into an oblong interrupted head, fruit with an acute narrow mar- 

 gin serrated upwards longer than the glumes whose midrib disap- 

 pears below the summit, bracteas membranaceous the lower ones 

 somewhat leafy, stem triangular with scabrous angles, leaves 

 plane." — Br. Fl. p. 492. E. B. t. 2042. C. disticha, Huds., 

 which Dr. Boott thinks should be restored a priori. 



In wet meadows, by the sides of ditches, pools, rivers, &c. ; not rare. Fl. May, 

 June. Fr. July. If.. 



E Med. — In a wet meadow at the upper end of Brading harbour, with C. 

 stricta, plentifully. 



W. Med. — In the marsh by Freshwater gate, 1838. Moist meadow between 

 Brixton and Muggleton, in plenty, 1846: the plant here differs from that at 

 Easton marsh. Freshwater, in its broader and more erect leaves, in its darker 

 (nigro-fuscescent), scarcely yellowish, more densely flowered spikelets, many of 

 which appear to consist throughout the entire spike of pistillate flowers alone. 

 Cockleton bog. Miss G. Kilderbee ! 



Perigynes sessile, imbricated, a little spreading, longer than the glumes, yel- 

 lowish brown, convex on their outer, plane on their inner, face, ovoid, with thin 

 shai'p, serrated but not winged margins, traversed on the back and front by 

 several filiform tawny ribs, gradually tapered to a flat dark brown beak, rough or 

 serrated on the edge and deeply bifid. Nut greenish yellow, shining, finely punc- 

 tate and somewhat wrinkled lengthwise, ovoid-elliptical, very flatly trigonate, the 

 lateral angles obtuse, with a narrow rib-like margin ; lipped with a short cylin- 

 drical process, on which the style is jointed. 



I do not find in my specimens of the ripe and perfect fruit any sign of that 

 widening at the base of the beak mentioned by Babington and figured by Leigh- 

 ton, which I therefore take to be an accidental conformation. 



5. C. arenaria, L. Sand Sedge. " Lower spikelets fertile, 

 upper ones sterile, intermediate ones sterile at the end, all 



