A MOUNTAIN FORM OF CAREX PULICARIS 107 



have been admitted in any modern European Flora, or in Boeckeler's 

 Cyperaceen, and one variety only (/}. casspitosa, which is not 

 montane) appears in Kiikenthal's account of the genus in the Pflan- 

 zenreich. Most of the published figures usually consulted depict the 

 typical plant. Flora Daiuca, i. tab. lb*6, it is true, shows a narrow 

 spikelet with erect perigynia, but this is clearly drawn from a plant 

 not yet in fruit. The plate of English Botany, no. 1051, portrays 

 a dwarf form with spreading perigynia, to which a fruiting spike, 

 where they are characteristically retiexed, was added for the third edi- 

 tion. In Reichenbach's Icones Fl. Germ. viii. tab. 195, a dwarf plant 

 with erect perigynia, which may represent our montane form, is drawn 

 by the side of the typical species, but is not referred to in the text. 

 Kukenthal remarks that G pulicaris inhabits swampy fields up to the 

 alpine region, but the only definite allusion to it as a montane species 

 that I can find is in Buchanan White's Flora of Perthshire, where 

 it is stated to grow in boggy places and alpine rock-ledges, reaching 

 2900 feet. 



My first experience of an unusual form of this plant occurred in 

 July, 1910, when I collected, as I thought, G. rupestris Bell, in two 

 localities near Braemar, viz. the Little Craigindal and Glen Callater. 

 On my return home, however, I was surprised to find that my 

 specimens from the latter locality belonged to G. pulicaris, and that 

 I had mistaken them, when growing, owing to their habit being 

 dwarfer and less tufted than usual, and their perigynia uniformly erect 

 instead of deflexed at maturity. Mr. C. E. Salmon tells me that he 

 was similarly deceived in 1912 in Glen Dole, and 1 learn through 

 Mr. Arthur Bennett that the late E. S. Marshall gathered this form 

 for G rupestris in 1888 and noted that in habit it was unlike 

 G. pulicaris. On the 10th July, 1915, I again saw this plant in 

 abundance and showing well-developed spikelets on the dry rock- 

 ledges of Craig-na-lochan, near Ben Lawers, and a week later on 

 Ben Laoigh ; but though I carefully searched, in neither place could 

 I find any perigynia that showed signs of refiexing. Subsequently 



1 have met with exactly the same form on the cliffs of Snowdon and 

 Twll Du in the month of June, and on the north side of Ben Nevis 

 in July. 



The confusion of this dwarf erect-fruited form of G. pulicaris 

 with G. rupestris is due to the similar size and habit of the two 

 plants, and to their occurrence in similar situations. But the likeness 

 is merely superficial, for not only has C. rupestris 3 instead of 



2 styles, but its perigynia are much shorter and quite differently 

 shaped. 



The mountain form of G. pulicaris has really a much closer 

 affinity with the Pyrenean species, G. macrostyla Lapeyr. Hist. Abr. 

 Pyr. p. 562 ( = C. decipiens J. Gay), which, though closely allied, 

 differs from any form of C. pulicaris chiefly by the fewer male 

 flowers of its spikelets and its narrower, more beaked perigynia, which 

 never become reflexed. 



As the principal points of distinction of this montane G jnilicaris, 

 as I saw it in life, were the persistency of its bracts and the lack of 

 reflexion of its fruits, 1 have been at some pains to ascertain how far 



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