Carex.] LXXXVIII. CYPERACE, 503 
with a lone slender beak and 3 styles. C. saxatilis, Linn. (pulla, Good. 
and Grahami, Boott); stems 4 to 10 inches, spikelets smaller, fewer, fruits 
nearly smooth with a short beak and 2 styles. Lofty Scotch mountains. ] 
47. C. paludosa, Gooden. (fig. 1157). Marsh C._—A stout, long-leaved 
species, with a creeping rootstock and triangular stems, 2 to 3 feet high. 
Male spikelets 2 or 3, above an inch long, and sessile. Female spikelets 
2 or 3, rather distant, cylindrical, often 2 inches long, sessile, or the 
lowest shortly stalked. Bracts leafy, without sheaths. Glumes more 
or less pointed. Styles 3-cleft. Fruits ovate, shghtly 3-angled, but 
much flattened, tapering into a very short, spreading point or beak. 
In wet meadows, and marshes, throughout Europe and central and 
Russian Asia, except the extreme north, and North America, Frequent 
in England, Ireland, and southern Scotland, less soin the north. 4. 
spring and carly summer. A taller variety with longer female spikelets, 
on longer stalks, more pointed glumes, and a more distinct beak to the 
fruit, has been distinguished as a species under the name of C. riparia, 
Curtis. It is also said to have the minute point on the anthers more 
distinct; but all these characters appear to be too variable to be relied 
upon as specific. It grows with the smaller form, and is rather more 
frequent in Britain, . | 
ed 
LXXXIX. GRAMINEA. THE GRASS FAMILY. 
Herbs, with stems usually hollow, except at the nodes, and 
alternate, narrow, parallel-veined, entire leaves, sheathing the 
stem at their base, but the sheaths are usually split open on 
the side opposite to the blade, and terminate, within the base 
of the blade, in a small scarious appendage called a ligule. 
Flowers in spikelets, arranged in terminal spikes, racemes or 
panicles. ach spikelet consists usually of 3 or more chaff-like, 
concave scales or bracts, called glumes, arranged alternately on 
opposite sides of the spikelet, their concave faces towards the 
axis; the 2 lowest, or first and second glumes, usually empty, 
nearly opposite to each other, and often differently shaped from 
the others. The succeeding, or flowering glumes, enclose each a 
rather smaller scale called a palea, usually thinner, and with 2 
longitudinal ribs or veins, placed either between the gloom and 
the axis of the spikelet, with its back to the axis, or apparently 
opposite the glume at the end of the axis. Where there are 
more than 3 glumes, the third, or lowest flowering glume is 
usually close to the second, its flower is sometimes imperfect, or 
it is even quite empty, and it is often intermediate in shape 
between the outer empty ones and the succeeding flowering ones, 
which are inserted on the axis at distinct intervals. Within 
the palea, or apparently between the flowering glume and the 
