Carex.] cyperace/E r)59 



W. Med. — Easton marsh, Freshwater. Gurnet common, Miss O. Kilderbee. 



Culms about a foot high, erect, triangular, with smooth edges, except towards 

 the top, and convex striated interstices. Leaves linear, bright green, roughish, 

 flat-edged, with close sheaths, Ligule ovate. Spike terminal, of 5, 8, or 10 oval 

 and sesssile spikelets, forming by their union a dense head of a similar figure, the 

 lowermost spikelet subtended by an ovate sheathing braclea, suddenly contracting 

 into an awl-shaped point, as long as or sometimes much shorter than the head or 

 spike. Scale! ovalo-lanccolate, acute, brownish, with a green central rib conti- 

 nued to the point of the scale, and just equalling in length the plano-convex fruit, 

 the outer face of which it closely embraces. MniUive perigynes crowded on the ovoid 

 spikelets, and, with them, of a yellowish brown colour, like over-ripe wheat; about 

 the length of the glumes, a little spreading or diverging, giving, with the latter, a 

 rough bristly aspect to the spikelets ; about 2 lines in length, ovato-acuminate, and 

 more or less attenuated at the base, plano-convex, with very thin slightly concave 

 margins, both faces traversed by several distinct filiform ribs, and attenuated by 

 their margins into a rather long triangular beak, entire or slightly cloven at the 

 point, and curved with greenish edges, which are minutely spinulose and cartila- 

 ginous. Nuts rather large, brownish yellow or straw-coloured, very smooth, 

 broadly elliptical or even suborbicular, strongly compressed, the faces nearly flat 

 (scarcely trigonous in section), sharply and briefly attenuated or substipilate at 

 the base, suddenly terminating at top in a cylindrical beak, which is crowned by 

 the very long, partially persistent, filiform style. 



" iii. Terminal spikes barren, 1 or 2. Stigmas 2.'' — Bab. Man. 



16. C. vulgaris, Fries. Tufted Bog Sedge. " Spikelets cylin- 

 drical erect 1 rarely 2 barren, fertile 3 — 4, lower one shortly 

 stalked, sheaths none, lower bractea subfoliaceous with small 

 round dark auricles, glumes elliptic or oblong-obtuse, fruit plano- 

 convex elliptic or obtuse with filiform nerves which disappear 

 upwards and an obsolete or evident entire beak." — Br. Fl. p. 494. 

 C. caBspitosa, Sm. : E. B. t. 1507. C. Groodenovi, Gay in Ann. 

 Sc. Nat. 3d ser. xl. 191. C. angustifolia, Sm. in E. Fl. iv. p. 127. 

 Goodenough, Trans, of Linn. Soc. ii. 195, tab. 21, fig. 8. An C. 

 Gibsoni, Bab. ? Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist. ii. p. 168. 



(3. Leaves extremely narrow. 



y. Pistillate spikes small, much abbreviated, ovoid-oblong, pointed ; perigynes 

 broad. 



In marshy boggy ground. Fl. April, May. !(.. 



E. Med. — Sandown marshes. In a boggy meadow at the upper extremity of 

 Brading harbour, plentifully. In Alverston lynch, with C. stricta. Between 

 Newchurch and Alverston, frequent. 



W. Med. — I find in a meadow near the Albion hotel. Freshwater gate, a plant 

 that appears to be a variety of this species, with the fertile spikes remarkably 

 short and pointed. Bog at Cockleton, Mils G. Kilderbee .'.' 



/3. On the skirts of Lake or Blackpan common, and elsewhere. 



y. Marshy meadow at Freshwater gate. 



A very di£Bcult and variable species, nearly allied to and often confounded with 

 C. stricta, and of which the figures and descriptions vary considerably. I 

 shall describe the plant as I find it in this island. * Root densely tufted with 

 yellowish fibres, and creeping with long, blackish, scaly runners. Culms erect, 

 solid, from about 1^ foot to 2 feet in height, very slender, rather bluntly trique- 

 trous and smooth for about f rds of its length, very acutely triangular and slightly 



* The description of this species by the Bishop of Carlisle is exactly that of 

 our Isle-of- Wight plant. 



