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closely approaches this form, hut it is less rigid, and has only 
a single spike of fruits. 
The other form, occurring in damp ground amongst long 
grass, is much taller and more slender than that just named; 
its stems exceed the leaves, and the fruit is less inflated, so 
as to be gradually attenuated into a beak. Some plants of 
this form, which I collected at Oakmere, Cheshire, and at 
Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire, near the reservoir, agree very 
well with the plant issued in Wirtgen’s Herb, plant, select., 
Fasc. VI., No. 287, the chief difference being that the 
Rhenish plant has the beak more recurved. 
Billot’s specimens of C. flava L., from the fosse of the 
citadel of Strasbourg (No. 2158), quoted by Dr. Syme as 
synonymous with his var. a. genuina, do not quite agree 
with any Scotch or north English plant which I have 
gathered or seen. Dr. Syme describes the female spikes 
of genuina as not contiguous, but they are all contiguous 
in the Strasbourg plant, while the leaves are rather longer 
than the stems, and the lowest bract greatly exceeds the 
male spike — the contrary being stated inE.B. to be the case. 
It may be mentioned that Godron, in the FI. de France, 
t. III., p. 424, like Dr. Syme, divides C. eu-jlava into var. a. 
genuina and (3. lepidocarpa, the former having approxi- 
mate, and the latter slightly scattered spikes, while the var. 
a. genuina of E.B. has the spikes not contiguous, and (3. 
lepidocarpa all approximate. The plants of the north of 
England which I have examined agree better with Godron’s 
characters. 
The figure of C. (Ederi Ehrh., given in “English Botany,” 
No. 1G74, very accurately represents the plants of Mere 
Mere and Southport, which also agree with Belgian speci- 
mens published in Van Heurck’s “Herbier des plantes rares ou 
crit.,” No. 189. But Dr. Syme quotes Billot’s plant (FI. Gall, 
et. Germ, exsicc., No. 1352) as identical with this species, 
whereas the specimens in my set differ greatly from the 
E.B. plate and description. In Billot’s plant the male 
spikes are on long stalks, while the female spikes are widely 
separated from each other, and are not as spreading as they 
