NOTES ON SOME BRITISH CARICES. 831 



deal with the North- American species with any certainty unless 

 this was done. The results he has published in the ' Memoirs of 

 the Torrey Botanical Chib,' No. 1, May, 1889, pp. 1—85. In this 

 he deals with the specimens seen in twenty-six herbaria and 

 collections (some American). From this I propose to notice such 

 remarks, &c., as touch upon our British Carices. 



I will take the paper and go through it, indicating the pages to 

 which the notes are intended to apply in extenso. 



Page. 27. — Prof. Bailey places 0. hcematolepis Drej. (our Caith- 

 ness plant) under C. cryptocarpa Meyer.- When the plant was 

 first found in Scotland I had the advantage of looking over 

 Dr. Almquist's fine collection of Scandinavian Carices, and with 

 these and our public herbaria I saw pretty well all the forms that 

 had been i)laced under C. salina then in authentic examples. I 

 could not see how to separate cnjtocarpa and salina as superspecies ; 

 and since I have seen no reason to alter my opinion. On the 

 other hand, Prof. Bailey has had great facilities for seeing types, 

 and great weight must be given to his conclusions. 



Page 28. — G. jiava and forms. It seems to me desirable that 

 Prof Bailey's careful determinations and notes upon these confused 

 plants should be given m extenso, for the benefit of workers who 

 may not have access to his paper. It will be seen that the result 

 is shortly this : C. lepidocarpa Tausch, must bear the name (as a 

 variety) of C. flava v. elatior Schlecht. ; C. (Ederi auct. angl. is 

 C. Jiava v. cyperoides Marsson ; and C. Jiava v. minor Townsend, is 

 practically (Ederi Ehrh. I am in doubt where Prof. Bailey would 

 place V. arrjillacea Townsend. Unfortunately I neglected when he 

 was here to show him this form, and he does not seem to have 

 noticed it in our herbaria. 



♦' 37 Caeex flava L. Sp. PL i. 975 (1753), v. s. Hb. Linn. 



" C.foliosa Gaud. Agr. Helv. ii. 191 teste Koch. C. uetliaca Sut. 

 Helv. ii. 251, teste Koch. C. Jiava forma lepidocarpa and androgyna 

 Olney Exsicc. fasc. iii. Nos. 26 and 27 (1871), v. s. 



*' As compared with its varieties, C. Jiava is distinguished by its 

 sessile or nearly sessile staminate spike, the contiguous and sessile 

 pistillate spikes, the large, long-beaked, and much reflexed peri- 

 gynium, the broad and abruptly divaricate bract, the broad and 

 flat leaves, and the conspicuous yellow color of the whole plant. 

 Europe, North America. 



*' The various forms of this perplexing species have been 

 singularly misunderstood and confounded. This is particularly 

 true of the var. (Ederi, the name having been transferred in recent 

 years to a plant very different from the one originally characterized. 

 A prolonged and careful study of the species in many herbaria dis- 

 closes the fact that the American forms differ from the European, 

 and enables me to present, with considerable confidence, the fol- 

 lowing arrangement : — 



* C. cryptocarpa Cheeseman, Trans. New Zealand Inst. 14, p. 412, may be 

 called C. pulcinatus. 



