2731
CAREX phaeostachya.
Short brown-spiked Carex.
MONCECIA Triandria.
Gen. Char. Spikes imbricated, dioecious, or androgynous.
Cal. a single glume. Barren flower,
Cor. none. Fertile flower, Cor. urceolate, of
one piece, persistent and inclosing a nut. Stigm.
2, 3.
Spec. Char. Sheaths shorter than the flower-stalks.
Fertile catkins two, distant, erect, oval. Fruit
ovate, triangular, smooth, with a cloven beak.
Scales of the barren catkins pointed; of the
fertile ones obtuse. Sm.
Syn. Carex phaeostachya. Sm. Eng. FI. v. 4. 99.
C. salina. Don, Herb. Br. 216. not of Swartz-8$c.
F o u n d by the late Mr. George Don upon rocks on the
high mountains of Cairn Gorm, Inverness-shire, also on the
Clova mountains, and on Ben Macdowie, near the head of
the river Dee. A drawing made by the late Mr. Sowerby,
and preserved by Sir J . E. Smith in his herbarium attached
to the specimen, affords an opportunity of figuring this rare
Carex, which was at first imagined to be C. salina of Swartz
and Wahlenberg, but afterwards introduced into English
Flora as an undescribed species.
“ Roots creeping extensively, with long, smooth, pale,
branched fibres. Stem solitary, 5 or 6 inches high, erect,
somewhat triangular, furrowed, smooth; leafy at the base.
Leaves upright, or a little spreading, flat, taper-pointed,
smooth, about half the height of the stem. Bracteas similar,