ON SOME SCOTTISH ALPINE FORMS OF CAREX 177 



Var. Grahami (Boott) Kiikenth. This plant has always, 

 been a difficulty to botanists, and the reason is easily 

 explained when one knows the plant. I have gathered it at 

 all the stations recorded for it and a few others, and have 

 long known that a correct description of the plant did not 

 exist, from that of Dr. Boott to that in the last edition of 

 Babington's " English Flora." Kiikenthal puts it in its right 

 place, and is the first, so far as I am aware, to place it, as a 

 plant having three stigmas, under C. vesicaria. Had Boott 

 done this, and described it as a plant of caespitose habit, it 

 would have saved much confusion. Generally the female 

 glumes are light brown, often with a green midrib ; the peri- 

 gynia are generally light green, often shaded with brown ; 

 and both these organs are darker if there has been much 

 sun in July. 



I have this from Sweden as C. vesicaria, var. alpigena, Fr. ; 

 and I saw it this year in the Herbarium at the University of 

 Christiania among C. saxatilis, L., collected by O. A. Hoffstadl 

 at Kirkebyfjeld, Meraker, N. Trondhjem Amt. 



Forma intermedia, mihi. This form seems intermediate- 

 between var. Grahami and C. saxatilis, differing from the 

 former in being 15-30 cm. high, not caespitose, and with, 

 flatter leaves ; from the latter it differs in having the female 

 spikelets 1-3, the lower one at least hanging on a long hair- 

 like peduncle when mature ; glumes as long as the perigynia,, 

 subulate, blackish-brown, with a light-coloured midrib and a 

 white tip ; perigynia as in Grahami, but always darker in. 

 colour, in fact large plants of this in the young state may 

 easily be confused with Grahami, as may be seen in the Royal! 

 Herbarium at Edinburgh, where they are mixed together. 



This is certainly not the form that Fries describes in 

 Mant. iii. (1842), p. 142, as alpigena, under C. vesicaria, as 

 it sometimes has three male spikelets and always a rudi- 

 mentary second spikelet ; female spikelets are never sessile,. 

 and the leaves are always flat. Then, if Kiikenthal is right 

 (as I believe he is), in stating that C. vesicaria, var. dichroa* 

 Anderss., is the same as C. Grahami (Boott), Kukenth., this 

 plant is not that form, as may be easily seen by a reference 

 to the figure in Andersson's " Cyper. Scand.," (1849. 

 t. n. VIII. f. io;b. 



75 E 



