936 



THE SEDGE FAMILY. 



47. Marsh Carex. Carex paludosa, Gooden. (Fig. 1139.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 807.) 



/y*^^. _^ff & stout, long-leaved species, with a 



If v\ v I Jllf creeping rootstock and triangular stems, 



2 to 3 feet high. Male spikelets 2 or 3, 

 above an inch long, and sessile. Fe- 

 male 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, slightly 3- angled, but much flat- 

 tened, tapering into a very short, spread- 

 ing point or beak. 



In wet meadows, and marshes, through- 

 oat Europe and central and Russian Asia, 

 except the extreme north. Frequent in 

 England, Ireland, and southern Scot- 

 land, less so in the north. Fl. spring 

 and early summer. A taller variety, 

 with longer female spikelets, on longer 

 stalks, the glumes more pointed, and the beak to the fruit more distinct, 

 has been distinguished as a species under the name of C. riparia (Eng. 

 Bot. t. 579). It is also said to have the minute point on the anthers 

 more distinct : but all these characters appears to be too variable to be 

 relied upon as specific. It grows with the smaller form, and is rather 

 more frequent in Britain. 



Fig. 1139. 





LXXXVIL THE GRASS FAMILY. GRAMINEjE. 



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. Each 

 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, 





