CYPERACE^. 905 



in a few localities in Perthshire and in the north of England. Fl. 

 summer. 



IX. CAREX. CABEX. 



Herbs, mostly perennial, with Grass-like leaves, chiefly radical or 

 on the lower part of the stem. Spikelets solitary or several in a ter- 

 minal spike, or the lower ones distant or stalked, or rarely forming a 

 short compound spike or dense panicle. Flowers unisexual, the stamens 

 and pistils always in separate glumes, either in separate spikelets or 

 in different parts of the same spikelet, which is then called mixed or 

 androgynous. Glumes imbricated all round the axis. Stamens in the 

 males 3, or rarely 2, without bristles or inner scales. Ovary in the 

 females enclosed within a bottle-shaped or inflated sack or utricle, con- 

 tracted at the top, with a small opening through which protrudes the 

 2-cleffc or 3-cleft style. This sack persists round the nut, forming an 

 angular or bladdery outer covering to the seed-like fruit. It is by 

 some botanists considered as a perianth, but various circumstances are 

 against that supposition, and its real analogies are not as yet satisfac- 

 torily made out. 



A very large and well-defined genus, widely spread over Europe, 

 northern Asia, and North America, extending into the mountain- 

 ranges of the tropics, and the extratropical regions of the southern 

 hemisphere. The great conformity of the essential characters of the 

 genus renders it difficult to break it up into well-marked sections, and 

 the main divisions are usually taken from the relative position of the 

 male and female spikelets or of their male and female portions. These 

 characters are readily appreciated when the plant is in flower, but 

 when in fruit, a state in which it is necessary to procure it in order 

 to determine the species with accuracy, it requires some attention 

 not to overlook the few male flowers at the base or at the top of the 

 mixed spikes, as, the stamens having fallen away, they then appear like 

 empty glumes. 



{Spikelet solitary and terminal 2 

 Spikelets several, the terminal one mixed, the rest female or mixed . 5 

 Spikelets several, the terminal one or more male (rarely with a very few 

 female flowers at the base), the others female or mixed 23 



Spikelets solitary ', terminal. 



2 J Spikelet wholly male or wholly female 3 



I Spikelet mixed, male at the top, female at the base 4 



fMale and female spikelets on different plants .... 1. Dioecious C. 



3 \ Female spikelet on a long peduncle arising from the base of the male 



L stem . 24. Dwarf C. 



