rable paper on this genus in the Linncan Transactions, it will.be discovered that no one of the British species bears
any resemblance to it. The synonym of C. saxatilis Huds. is referred: by Sir James Smith to this plant, notwithstanding
the author first alluded to says that the C. pilulifera and saxatilis. of Hudson have no sheaths ; conceiving
the latter species to be the C. rigida ; which is certainly a correct remark, and a peculiarity sufficient in itself to keep
them both separate from C. prcecox, though in general habit they bear no small degree of similarity to one another.
C. tomentosa is likewise in many particulars allied to it, but may always be distinguished by the want of sheaths
to the bractes, and by the nearly globose fruit.
In referring hither the C. umbrosa o f Host, I follow the younger Haller, whose botanical knowledge scarcely
yields to that of his illustrious father, and who is now assiduously employed in collecting materials fo ra complete
Flora Helvetica. This author observes of it, “ diversam habuissem speciem, nisi transplantatio in hortum plantas
vulgaris in siccissimis natas me docuisset earn mire mutare,” in Rom. Arch. I . fuse . 2. p. 9. The specimens, indeed,
which I have received from Schleicher and Seringe appear to be only a luxuriant variety of C. prcecox, affording
no character by which they may be distinguished. Gaudin in his Agrostologia Helvetica, and Host in
his Gramina Austriaca, assign to this plant female glumes‘with rough keels ; but in the individuals now before me
these glumes are not a t all more rough than in the common appearance of the plant, in which the asperity is not
wholly confined to their extremities, but extends a little way below them.
Carex prcecox is common throughout Great Britain, in dry upland pastures, on heaths and in low meadows,
in bushy places as well as in exposed situations, flowering in March and April, when its numerous large yellow
anthers are conspicuous even from a distance. I have not observed it myself to vary in any remarkable degree; but
in the last edition of the Flore Française three varieties are enumerated ; the first having the lower spikes androgynous,
the second having the middle spike geminate, and the third having the lower spike radical.
The synonym of Haller is introduced here contrary to the opinion of Schkuhr, because it is cited by Seringe of
Berne in his specimens of the Carices o f Switzerland, and because the description accords sufficiently. The Carex
verna of Villars, which the French naturalists have referred hither, I have followed Schkuhr in rejecting ; since
it did not appear a t all clear to him that this was the plant intended by it : but the C. verna of Persoon is confessedly
our prcecox.
We know of no useful purpose to which this species may be applied.