[ 2 0 4 3 ]
CAÏIEX limosa.
Green and gold Carex.
MONOEC1A Triandria.
Gen. Char. Male, Catkin imbricated. Cal. of one
scale. Cor. none. Female, Catkin imbricated.
Cal. of one scale. Cor. none. Stigmas 2 or 3.
Seed clothed with a swelling tunic.
Spec. Char. Sheaths extremely short, scarcely any.
Female spikes ovate, pendulous. Fruit elliptical,
compressed. Root creeping.
Syn. Carex limosa. Linn. Sp. 'P l. 1386. Sm. FI.
Frit. 986. Gooden. Tr. o f Linn. Soc. V. 2. 187.
Huds. 409. With. 103. Hull. 208. Light/. 556.
Cyperoides spica pendula breviore, squamis e spadiceo
vel fusco rutilante viridibus. Scheuchz. Agr. 443,
t. 10. ƒ. 13.
T h i s , one of our most elegant species of Carex, especially
from the bronze hue of its spikes, is found only in deep black
rotten bogs, chiefly in Scotland and the north of England.
Mr. G. Don sent it from near Forfar. The late, Rev. Mr.
Bryant and Mr. Woodward have found it a few miles north
of Norwich, in a tract of country once rich in botanical treasures,
but now more useful to the farmer. It flowers in June,
but rarely, at least in Norfolk.
The Jong creeping perennial roots, sheathed with black
scales, send very long woolly fibres down deep into the mud.
The herbage is rather glaucous. Stems ascending, triangular,
a span high, rough, leafy at the base. Leaves narrow,
acute, keeled, rough-edged, shorter than the stems. Bractea
like the leaves but much smaller, with a brown, abrupt,
white-edged, very short sheath. Male spike terminal, erect,
lanceolate, with many elliptical acute glumes, of a brown
and golden hue. Female spikes 1 or 2, on longish, smooth,
drooping stalks, ovate, of many broadly elliptical acute scales,
variegated with green, brown and gold. Fruit elliptical, broad,
compressed, glaucous, ribbed, smooth, with scarcely any
beak. Stigmas 3. Germen and seed triangular, scarcely
compressed.