117 



SHORT NOTES. 



Carex elytroides Fries in Britain. — In July, 1887, Mr. J. E. 

 Griffith, of Bangor, sent me several Carices from Anglesea ; one 

 was left undetermined until the spring of 1888, and then, I regret 

 to say, partially forgotten. The specimen agrees very well with 

 Fries' description of Carex elytroides (Summa Veg. Scand. p. 232), 

 and with specimens from Dr. Almquist's herbarium. The likeness 

 of the spikes to some forms of rigida and puUa is very marked. Fries 

 places it under his "rigidaB," before hyperborea Drejer, and describes 

 the fruit ** fructibus obovatis compressis enervihus punctulatis." 

 Sonder, in his Flora of Hamburgh, p. 495, says, " 3-5 striatus,'' 

 and Dr. Boott pointed out (111. Genus Carex) that Fries' remarks 

 must not be taken too absolutely with regard to the use of the word 

 " enervihus " by him, as Fries admitted that some of these forms did 

 have indications of nerves, though described as ^^ enervihus.'' In 

 Mr. Griffith's plant they are almost obsolete. Nyman places it as 

 a subspecies under vulgaris Fr. Fries says, " Species pulcheUa, a 

 C. vulgari in cujus societate saepe nascitur, certe distincta." It 

 seems to recede from vulgaris towards rigida, but is a much slenderer 

 plant than any forms of rigida I know. Fries quotes '* C. saxatilis? 

 JiacccBformis, Laestadius," and Andersson adds, *' Laest. in litt., Fries 

 I. c, Bot. Not. 1845, p. 120." L. L. Laestadius has no mention of 

 this form in his ' Loca Parallela Plantarum,' or C. P. Laestadius in 

 his 'Bidi-ag' (1860). Andersson calls the Lapland form ''horealis,'" 

 and the Upsala one ** australis.'' I give a few references, with the 

 distribution : — 



Carex elytroides Fries in Botaniska Notiser, 1843, p. 106 ; 

 1845, p. 120 ; Andersson, Scand. Cyper. p. 52, t. 5, fig. 48 (1849) ; 

 Lang, in Linnea, vol. xxiv. (1851), p. 561 ; Sonder, Flora Ham- 

 burgensis (1851), p. 495 ; Lange, Consp. Fl. Groenlandicae, p. 147 

 (1880) ; Almquist, in Hartm. Fl. Skan. Flora, ed. 2, p. 468 (1879); 

 Fries, Herb. Normale, f. 10, No. 77. — Greenland. Sweden in 

 Upland (doubtful for Halland). Lapland, "By Palojoki and 

 Kuttainen, near Enontekis," Laestadius in * Bidrag till kannedomen 

 cm vaxtligheten i Tornea Lappmark,' 1860, pp. 26 & 44. Berlin, in 

 his * Distribution of Scan. Plants,' gives it for W. Bothnia. Lange 

 says this was recorded from Greenland, '* Jacobshavn," by Robert 

 Brown as C. aquatilis. Dr. Boott, in Sir J. D. Hooker's * Dist. 

 Arctic Plants ' (Linn. Trans, xxiii.), places it under vulgaris, without 

 giving any special distribution. I do not understand Almquist's 

 note under C. rigida (Hartm. /. c. p. 468), as surely Fries would 

 hardly have put his own plant next hyperhorea if it was an acuta 

 form, which I see no good reason for supposing. Almquist seems 

 to pass over many of Fries' plants with scant notice, while making 

 others hardly more tenable himself ; no doubt in some cases the 

 specimens issued in the Herb. Normale seem hardly to represent 

 the plants as described by Fries himself. — Arthur Bennett. 



Calamagrostis borealis Laestad. in Scotland. — The grass which 

 I gathered in Swath Tay, Mid-Perth, and recorded in Scot. Nat. as 

 0. stricta (but which Mr. Arthur Bennett was in doubt about referring 



