BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS 121 



the roadside, though the habitat did not seem a likely one for it even 

 as a casual. In 1909, I found P. Cliaixii in a neglected field ot 

 grass at Old Aberdeen, like P. palitstris no doubt an alien. 

 JAMES W. H. TRAIL. 



A remarkable form of Carex aquatilis, Wahl. Mr. George 

 West has lately sent me a series of very nice specimens of Carex 

 from Scotland, acquired mostly while exploring the series of lakes he 

 has been engaged in. 1 Among these is a most extraordinary form 

 of C. aquatilis. He describes it as forming dense tufts here and 

 there in Inchnacardoch Bay, Loch Ness, and " immediately behind 

 the large tussocks on ground that is very wet but firm. It grows in 

 a spreading mass, carpeting the ground with a tangle of rhizomes 

 and roots, so dense that it is scarcely possible to get the fingers 

 through them in order to extract a specimen. As the water is 

 approached, and the ground becomes mere mud, this carpeting habit 

 gives way, and the rhizomes of many plants combine together and take 

 a vertical direction instead of a horizontal. They forsake the diageo- 

 tropic habit, assume negative geotropism and become casspitose. 

 The combined rhizomes form a sort of trunk, which is very hard and 

 heavy, something like a tree-fern trunk. They are thus able to 

 elevate their leaves and inflorescences above the surface of the sur- 

 rounding water" (Notes on the specimens sent me by Mr. West). 

 One of these tussocks extracted by Mr. West weighed 70 Ibs. when 

 wet. That aquatilis grows in considerable masses, Mr. West shows 

 in his papers, but anything like the above I have vainly sought for. 



Of the described forms in books so far as the inflorescence goes, 

 these specimens come nearest the var. rirescens, Anderson, Cyp. 

 Scandinavicce (1849), P- 4-6- 



In another note Mr. West remarks, " These grow in large 

 casspitose clumps forming a dense head of foliage : with the 

 rhizome the whole clump will be 3 feet high or more. They stand 

 out of the water, and when isolated look like miniature palms. 

 When sufficiently abundant to be close together they form numerous 

 little islands with mud or water between." 



Has any Scottish botanist observed anything like this with 

 aquatilis^ It is aquatilis assuming the habit of C. Hudsonii, 

 Ar. Benn. (C. stricta, Good.}. ARTHUR BENNETT, Croydon. 



Notes on Callitriehe. Among the many good aquatic plants 

 gathered by Mr. G. West in his examination of the Scottish Lakes, 

 was a fine series of Callitriehe autumnalis, L. 



The normal form was represented by many gatherings, but in 

 others from Loch Gelly and Loch Kilconquhar, Fife (20. 9. 09), the 



1 ' Comp. Study of Dominant Flora of Aquatic Habit, etc.,' with 53 plates. 

 " Proc. Roy. Soc. Ed." (1905), p. 967. 



' Further Contributions to above, etc.,' with 62 plates. ' % I'roc. Roy. Soc. 

 Ed.' 1 (1910), pp. 63-182. 



