I IO 
THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
but may be distinguished under a lens by having many (about 
eleven) equal and parallel veins running between rows of very 
long rectangular air-chambers. Both the cortex and central 
cylinder of the creeping stems are firm and compact in substance, 
and are traversed with a system of small intercellular air spaces. 
The cells are richly stored with starch. 
In Lyte’s Herbal (translated from 
Dodoen’s Cruydeboeck in 1578) the 
English names for this sedge are “the 
pole Rushe, or bull Rushe, or Mat 
Rushe : in French “ Jonc a cabas, ” 
that is to say, “ The frayle Rushe or 
panier Rushe, because they used to 
make hgge frayles and paniers there¬ 
withal.” Up to the present day the 
Great Sedge is still harvested, and 
bundles of the long dried stems are 
sent over from Holland to be woven 
I into matting. In Ann Hathaway’s 
cottage near Stratford on Avon, where 
the old furniture has been reverently 
kept as it was in Shakespeare’s time. 
we found that the founda¬ 
tion of a bed on which the 
mattress would rest, was 
Woven from these stems, 
and it looked still in good 
condition. Scirpus lacu- 
stris is a good instance of 
FIG - 7 - how widely water plants 
may be distributed ; it flourishes in all temperate regions of 
both the northern and southern hemispheres. 
In the Pond-weed family, Naiadaceae, the formation of 
submerged narrow leaves is characteristic of the whole group, 
and very often these only are produced. An example may be 
seen in the Grass Wrack, Zostera marina, whose long glossy 
deep-green ribbon-leaves form extensive beds off the Essex coast 
near Walton and elsewhere. It is one of the very few floWering- 
plants that has taken to salt-water life. Although it does 
not grow within the wash of breaking waves. Grass Wrack 
Scirpus 
lacuslris 
'/Gibbon 'leaf- 
