Sedge is from the Anglo-Saxon Secg, and meant almost any waterside plant. Thus we read of the Moor Secg, and the Red Secg, and the Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum) is called the Holly Sedge. And so it was doubtless used by Shakespeare. In our day Sedge is confined to the genus Carex, a family growing in almost all parts of the world, and containing about 1000 species, of which we have fifty-eight in Great Britain; they are most graceful ornaments both of our brooks and ditches; and some of them will make handsome garden plants. One very handsome species—perhaps the handsomest—is C. pendula, with long tassel-like flower-spikes hanging down in a very beautiful form, which is not uncommon as a wild plant, and can easily be grown in the garden, and the flower-spikes will be found very handsome additions to tall nosegays. There is another North American species, C. Fraseri, which is a good plant for the north side of a rock-work: it is a small plant, but the flower is a spike of the purest white, and is very curious, and unlike any other flower.