/ o. [ I05I ]
C A R E X pulicaris.
Flea Car ex.
MONOECIA Triandria.
Gen. Char. Male, Catkin imbricated. Cat. o f i
fcale. Cor. none.— Female, Catkin imbricated.
Cal. o f i fcale. Cor. none. Stigmas a or 3.
Seed clothed with a fwelling tunic.
Spec. Char. Spike Ample, androgynous ; the male
flowers uppermoft. Fruit fpreading and reflexed,
tapering at both ends. Stigmas two.
Syn. Carex pulicaris. Linn. Sp. PL 1380. Gooden.
Tr. of Linn. Soc. v. a. 14a. Sm. FI. Brit. 965.
Lludf. 40a. With. 86. Hull. 204.. Relh. 349.
Sibtb. a6. Abbot. 203.
Gramen cyperoides minimum, feminibus deorsum
reflexis puliciformibus. Rail Syn. 424.
T h IS little Carex grows in fpongy or muddy boggy places,
flowering early in June, when it might be overlooked for the
male plant of C. dioica, and in that ftate it, is figured in FI.
Dan. t. 166. When in a week or two the fruit begins to
ripen, all the female flowers fpread widely, and at length become
reflexed, the dark brown highly polifhed feed-cafes
giving the plant a Angular and charafteriftic afpeft, which has
obtained it the name of the Flea Carex.
The root is fibrous, perennial. Stems Ample, flender,
fmooth, from 3 to 10 inches high, fheathed at the bafe with
feveral flender, fmooth, fpreading leaves. Spike unbranched,
flender, upright. Glumes lanceolate. Male flowers uppermoft,
numerous, with 3 fhortifh flamina ; female rather fewer,
with 2 ftigmas, their glumes deciduous, being forced off by the
bending back of the ripening germen. Fruit elliptic-lanceolate,
tapering at each end, flightly cloven at the tip, fharp-edged on
each fide, deftitute of ribs or nerves, of a polifhed brown.
Seed elliptical, brown when ripe.