4.8 The Irish Naturalist. 



CAREX AQUATILIS, WAHLB. AND ITS BRITISH 



FORMS. 



BY ARTHUR BKNNKTT, F.I,.S. 



Carex aquatilis, though less variable than C. sali7ia, yet pre- 

 sents many forms so closel}^ related to each other as to be 

 difficult to discriminate with anything like satisfaction. In 

 the eleventh edition of Hartman's ''Handbook of the Scan- 

 dinavian Flora," Dr. Almquist gets over the difficulty by 

 naming only one form, the var. epigeios I^aestadius (not of 

 Fries, which is a saliiia form). Anderssen, in his "Cj^peracese 

 Scandinavise (1849), p. 46, has five varieties. I^aestadius, in 

 his "Bidrag i Tornea Lappmark," describes a "C arcuata,'' 

 which seems to be a sub-species of aquatilis^ and may be the 

 same as the **C aquatilis var. subacuta'^ of the '%oca Parrel- 

 lela" (1839); but I have seen no specimens of either. 



Up to the eighth edition of Hooker and Arnott, some doubt 

 seems to have been felt as to our plant being the same as 

 Wahlenberg's, though Fries, in his "Nov. Flor. Suec." Mant. 

 iii. p. 146 (1842), distinctly says "C aquatilis. Hook. Brit., 4, 

 p. 336, ex Grev. ! " I have specimens gathered by Dr. Greville, 

 which come somewhat between the extreme var. elatior and 

 the var. virescens Ands. 



In the first edition of his "Manual" (1843, p. 341), Babington 

 has a var. elatior, "three to four feet high, glumes oblong, 

 blunt, shorter than the fruit : in the valley near the bridge at 

 Clova." In the second edition (1847) this disappears, and 

 Professor Babington wrote me that he then considered it was 

 not entitled to rank as a variety. Dr. Boswell S3^me, in the 

 third edition of "English Botany," vol. x. p. 113, 1870, re- 

 names the same plant var. Watsorii, ignoring the former 

 naming of Babington. In 1850 Mr. J. Mcl^aren, in a paper read 

 before the Botanical Societj^ of Edinburgh, and published in 

 the Bota7iical Gazette for 1851 (p. 23), makes three Scottish 

 varieties, but gives no names to them. His var. 7 is the elatior 

 of Babington ; his a seems to be the table-land form of Forfar 

 and Aberdeen ; his /3 I suspect to belong to C. rigida, and to 

 be the plant mentioned by S5^me from the I^ittle Craigendahl 

 and lyochnagar, and Iwhich is closely allied to C. limula Fr., 

 and C. rigida v. inferalpi7ia, I^aest. 



Mr. H. C. Watson, in "Topographical Botany," remarks that 

 Dr. Boott was inclined to think that the lowland plant offered 

 more differences than could well be allowed to a variety, and 

 Dr. Boott contrasted it with the North American C. stricta, 

 Lam. (C angustata, Sm.). Certainly some of the Scottish 

 specimens do much resemble some of the forms of the North 

 American plant. 



