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C A R E X curta.
White Car ex.
MONOECIA Triandria.
Gen. Char. Male, Catkin imbricated. Cal. of 1 scale.
Cor. none. Female, Catkin imbricated. Cal. of
1 scale. Cor. none. Stigmas 2 or 3. Seed clothed
with a swelling tunic.
Spec. Char. Spikelets about six, elliptical, rather
distant, naked. Glumes ovate, membranous, slightly
pointed. Tunic undivided.
Syn. Carex curta. Gooden. Tr. o f L . Soc. v. 2. 145.
Sm. FI. Brit. 967. With. 88. Hull. 204. Relh. 363.
Schkuhr. Carie. 43. n. 33. t. C.ƒ . 13.
C. brizoides. Huds. 406.
C. canescens. Light/. 550.
Gramen cyperoides palustre elegans, spicâ compositâ
asperiore. Rail Syn. 423.
G. cyperoides elegans, spica compositâ molli. Dill, in
Raii Syn. 423.
w E have received this Carex, generally supposed very rare,
from Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Sussex and Scotland.
It grows in watery places, flowering in June, but is not readily
discernible from other kinds till its neat whitish ox silvery
spikelets are fully formed and begin to ripen.
The root is perennial, and in some degree creeping. Stem
a foot high, triangular, smooth except in the upper part.
Leaves linear, narrow, flattish upwards, pale grass-green or
somewhat glaucous, roughish, rising nearly as high as the
stem. Spikelets from 4 to 6 or more, alternate, elliptical,
obtuse, many-flowered, the lowest only being occasionally
furnished with a bractea, for they are generally all naked.
Lower flowers male, fewer than the female. Glumes ovate,
shining, with a little green rib. Fruit longer than the
glumes, ovate, compressed, smooth, acute, undivided.
Stigmas 2. Seed elliptical.
The herbarium of Linnaeus first taught us to distinguish
this from his C. brizoides, which is an exotic species.