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SCHCENUS Marifcus.
Prickly Bog-rujh.
TRIANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. C har. Glumes chaffy, cluttered; the outer ones
barren. Cor. none. Seed i , roundith, among
the glumes.
Spe c. C har. Stem round. Leaves prickly at the
margin and keel.
Syn . Schoenus Marifcus. Linn. Sp. PI. 62. Sm. FI.
Brit. 43. Hudf. 14. With. 79. Hull. 12.
Relh. 16.
Cyperus longus inodorus fylveftris. Rail Syn. 426.
A N A TIV E of boggy moors in feveral parts of England,
but not common. It is faid to be peculiarly abundant about
Cambridge, from whence our fpecimens were fitpplied by the
Rev. Mr. Holme. Mr. Wigg gathered it this autumn near
Yarmouth. It is perennial, and flowers throughout July and
Auguft.
The roots are long, creeping, and run deep into the ground.
Stem ereft, 3 or 4 feet high, ftraight, panicled, leafy, round
and quite fmooth. Leaves numerous, long, tapering to a
fharp triangular point; their edges and keel very neatly and
acutely ferrated; the bafe fheathing, cylindrical, and entire.
The flowers are brown, cylindrical or fomewhat ovate, cluf-
tered; the clufters collected into corymbi, furnifhed with numerous
fheathing briftle-pointed braHese. Glumes ovate, keeled,
fmooth; the outermoft fhorteft and barren. Mr. Sowerby
has obferved the ftamina to be but two, and the ftigma to con-
lift occafionally of 2,3 or 4 divifions. The fruit has none of thofe
briftles or hairs at its bafe obfervable in S. comprejjus, albus, and
fome others; neither does it refemble them in ftruHure, being
a real ovate drupa, externally quite fmooth and polifhed. The
feed is elliptical, pointed, marked with 3 angles, and enclofed
in a mealy pulp. This circumftance might probably authorize
the eftablifhment of a new genus, when Haller’s name of
Marifcus would properly come into ufe; but feveral foreign
plants allied to this require previoufly to be fludied.