Carex.] cyperacE/E. 561 



beak short entire, glumes dark lanceolate, fertile ones acute." — 

 Br. Fl. p. 494. E. B. ix. t. 580. Fl. Dan. xiii. t. 2247. Host. 

 Gram. Aust. i. 70, t. 95. C. gracilis. Curt. Fl. Land. ii. fasc. 4, 

 t. 63. 



/?. Leaves extremely iiaiiow and erect ; perigynes ovato-acute, much longer 

 than the very obtuse glumes. 



In wet mearlows and by ditchbanks; rare. Fl. May, June. If. 



E. Med. — In several meadows in Sandown marshes, abundantly: the last mea- 

 dow but one on the right before coming into the village is full of it. 



/3. Foot of Alverstone lynch. 



Root blackish, extremely tough, fibrous and creeping with long whitish runners. 

 Culm 8 or 9 inches to 2 or 3 feet high, erect or when in flower inclining, solid, 

 very acutely triquetrous, the angles smooth towards the base, rough towards the 

 summit, the faces finely striated. Leaves about as long as the culm, rigid, finely 

 tapering and bright green above, a little glaucous beneath, recurved at their ex- 

 tremities, rough along the edges and very acute keel, and most so near the point. 

 Bracts sheathless, long, leafy, with roundish, white, membranous, close-pressed 

 auricles, the lowermost and even the next above it far overtopping the spikes, the 

 upper ones very narrow and much shorter. Staminate spikes 1 or more commonly 

 2, approximate or a little remote, erect, slender, 1 — 2 inches long, bluntly trique- 

 trous, their glumes ovate or ovato-lanceolate, more or less acute or pointed,* the 

 upper ones even mucronate, dark brown or nearly black (sometimes fuscous), with 

 a pale green or whilish keel. Anthers pale yellow, with distinct pellucid but not 

 bristly tips. Pistillate spikes 3 or 4, nearly sessile, approximate or somewhat 

 remote, particularly the lowest one, cylindrical and somewhat pointed, with 

 usually a few barren flowers at the summit, slender and erect in bloom, thick and 

 a little inclining from their weight when in seed, but not drooping or pendulous. 

 Glumes similar in form to those of the barren spike, hut more uniformly and 

 acutely pointed and even partly mucronate, very dark, with broad bright green 

 keels, much narrower and shorter than the ripe perigynes. Stigmas 2, long, 

 white, tapering, spreading and recurved. Perigynes crowded, patent or almost 

 horizontal, much broader than the glumes and in general considerably longer, 

 glabrous, at first light green like those of C. vulgaris or C. paludosa, very shortly 

 pedicellate, broadly ovate, plane on the outer, a little gibbous or bluntly trique- 

 trous on the inner, face, with faint greenish ribs, terminating in a short, truncate, 

 cylindrical and entire point. 



From C. riparia and C. paludosa the present species may be readily distin- 

 guished by its more slender habit, the brighter, not glaucous, green of its much 

 narrower foliage, and by having but two stigmas. 



/3. comes very near the description of C. Gibsoni, Bab., but is twice as tall. Yet 

 the plant here described is, I am convinced, a mere form of C. acuta. 



* Nothing is more inconstant than the form of the glumes in the same species 

 of Carex, nay, even in the same individual and on the same spike, which may, 

 and often does, present them at once acute and obtuse, rounded and acuminate, 

 mucronate and unarmed. In general the superior glumes of a spike have the 

 greatest tendency to acumination, the inferior to obtuseness ; and it is the prepon- 

 derating tendency to one or other of these opposite extremes, rather than the com- 

 plete development in either, which must be understood as applied to specific 

 character. 



4c 



