574 CYPERACE*. [Carex. 



nous border, and finely serrated upwards. Root almost woody, creeping exten- 

 sively with long', while, sharp-pointed runners and cu|iious fil)res. Culms erect, 

 a foot to 2 feet in height, with three blunt an.Lfles, very smooth and shininir, leafy. 

 Leaves nearly erect, rather narniw, flattish and taper-pointed, more or less hoary 

 with fine downy hairs, which are most copious on the summit of the moderately 

 long-, close and shining sheaths on the side opposite to the leaf, the inferior por- 

 tion of the sheaths themselves being- in my specimens quite glabrous. Ligule 

 short, rounded, very hairy. Bracts like the leaves, the lower ones very long. 

 Staminate spikes 2 or 3, lanceolate, erect, obscurely triquetrous, the loweiinost on 

 a very short stalk, the other two sessile, the terminal one often a little compound 

 at the base; their scales ovate, brownish red, with broad white edges and green 

 keel, hoary with thick down. Anthers buff-colonred. Pistillate spikes likewise 

 2 or 3, on stalks of variable length, equalling or considerably exceeding the 

 sheaths, erect, slender in flower, in fruit broader and more cylindrical; ^en scales 

 paler, more tapering and far less hairy than in the staminate spikes, with very 

 long serrated points. Stigmas 3. Perigyne stalked, ovate, plano-convex, strongly 

 ribbed, densely downy, the beak deeply cleft into two slightly spreading rough 

 points, with the persistent styles between them. Nut brownish, 3 -cornered, 

 roundish ovate, stviato-punctate, tipped with a part of the style, loosely invested 

 with the perigyne. 



" *■* Fruit glabrous."— TisLh. Man. 



35. C. ampullacea, Gooden. Slender-beaked Bottle Sedge. 

 " Barren spikelets 2 — 3, fertile 2 — 3 distant shortly stalked cy- 

 lindrical erect, sheaths none (very short or nearly wanting, Bromf.), 

 bracteas foliaceous, glumes lanceolate about half as long as the 

 fruit, fruit crowded somewhat membranaceous subglobose inflated 

 striated suddenly contracted into a long narrow beak bifid at the 

 point, stem bluntly triangular." ■ — Br. Fl. p. 506. E. B. t. 780. 

 Schk. Car. i. p. 125, t. Tt. fig. 107. Fl. Dan. xiii. t. 1248? 

 Host. Gram. Aust. i. 73, t. 99 (a broad-leaved form). 



In ditches and wet boggy ground ; not common. Fl. April, May. Fr. June. 



^- 

 E.Med. — Ditch in Sandown level, and on the skirts of Lake common, very 



abundantly, 1839; also about the skirts of Lake common, in several places. At 



the foot of the Parsonage lynch, Newchurch, as also in several ditches by that 



village, abundantly, 1840. By a drain on Apse heath, close to the withy-bed, 



1840. Abundant in various places in the boggy meadows between Cridmore and 



Appleford, about the Wilderness and between it and Rookley, &c., 1842. 



W. Med. — In several parts of the marsh at Freshwater gate, 1841. 



Plant perfectly glabrotis throughout. Root white, slender, creeping, with 

 numerous pale slender fibres. Culms from about a foot to 2 feet high, erect, 

 slender, pale yellowish green, smooth and shining, naked for some distance down- 

 wards, very obtusely trigonous, except sometimes immediately under the lower- 

 most sheath, the interangular faces rounded and striated, quite glabrous up to the 

 sheath of the lowermost bract, beyond that with one of the faces flattened and 

 channelled by the stalks of the pistillate spikes, the edges of the groove acute and 

 roughish. Leaves several, erect, very long and narrow, about a line to '2\ lines in 

 breadth or even sometimes less, firm and rigid, dark green at the back, glaucous 

 above, finely ribbed and strongly channelled or concave, closely sheathing the 

 culm with their white membranous bases, acutely keeled and rough both there 

 and on the edge of their very finely tapering points, of which those of the supe- 

 rior leaves overtop the culm. Bracts foliaceous, those of the pistillate spikes 

 exactly like the leaves, erect ; of the lowermost spike and that next above it longer 

 than the culm ; of the third or uppermost spike, when that is present, far shorter 

 than the rest: of the staminate spikes the undermost alone is subtended by a 



