but smaller, with considerable, rather swelling sheaths.
Flower-stalks triangular, smooth, longer than the sheaths,
though shorter than the bracteas. Fertile catkins distant,
nearly half an inch long, ovate, rather dense, with broad,
bluntish, pointless, dark-brown scales; barren one solitary,
ovate, with ovate, dark-brown, acute, often considerably
pointed scales. Stam. 3. Stigm. 3. Fruit green tinged
with brown, ovate, or elliptical, triangular, scarcely ribbed,
smooth, with a broadish brown beak, projecting beyond the
scale, acutely cloven, but less deeply than in ” C. speiro-
stachya, “ and destitute of the white membranous border for
Which that species is remarkable.” Sm.
There does not appear much danger of this species being
confounded with, or mistaken for, C. speirostachya; it far
more resembles C. pcmicea, of which it may possibly be an
alpine variety: but it would be unsafe to pronounce it so
without much more attention than it is possible to give,
unless it could be procured in a fresh state; nor would it
be doing justice to the memory, either of George Don the
discoverer, or of Smith who has so minutely described it.—
E. F.