274 THE JOURNAL OF BOTAXT 



CAREX MONTANA L. 

 By H. Stuart Thompson, F.L.S. 



On August 10th I cycled to Charterhouse-on-Mendlp, partly to 

 explore an interesting seventy-acre plot of rough pasture and heather 

 recently bought by a friend interested in botanj^ and geology. This 

 enclosure is primarily a rabbit-warren, with a remarkable chasm or 

 miniature canyon of curious irregularity, and bedecked Avith ferns, 

 running some 200 yards through the carboniferous limestone on the 

 side nearest the Mendip Sanatorium. 



As noticed in 1915, when I began mapping the distribution of 

 Carex moniana on the Mendip plateau, this sedge is ver}' abundant 

 in this and neighbouring walled enclosures, and on the roadside 

 between Charterhouse and the head of Cheddar Gorge. In May and 

 June the pale green of its narrow grass-like leaves can be seen from 

 iifar ; but in a tine August the colour is a rich yellow-green, so that 

 it forms a distinct feature in the landscape and can be seen a quarter 

 of a mile off, especially when against a belt of heather. The object 

 of this note is to draw the attention of field-botanists to the colour 

 of the foliage of the sedge, because it ma}^ possibl}" be found not only 

 elsewhere on the Mendip Hills but in other English counties, e. g. 

 Wilts and Dorset, from which I believe it is not yet reported. 



In Somerset C. montana was unknown until the late E. F. Linton 

 found it, when botanizing in July 1»90 with the late K. P. Murray, 

 on a roadside bank close to Charterhouse Church ( Journ. Bot. xxviii. 

 p. 350). In 190S it was seen by Mr. F. Samson in another place in 

 the neighbourhood ; and in 1916 and 1917 I observed that it was 

 " abundant over scores of acres and appeared in spots sev^eral miles 

 apart" (Report of Watson Bot. Exch. Club for 1917, p. 79). This 

 year, on August 10th, I saw it in several patches much nearer Priddy, 

 nearly three miles from where Mr. Pugsley had seen it by the Roman 

 road west of Charterhouse. Two years ago I noticed it in small 

 quantity on approaching from the tableland the extreme head of 

 Cheddar Gorge. All these localities are at an altitude of from 700 

 to 800 ft., and roughly within the old mining area. 



When once known in the field C. montana can easily be detected 

 in July or August hundreds of yards off, when riding on a bicycle, so 

 brilliant is the yellow-green of its foliage. The leaves of Brachy- 

 podium sylvaticum are of a very similar colour when growing in the 

 open moorland or rough pasture, as that grass sometimes does on 

 Mendip and elsewhere, but they are much broader. It was the 

 leaves only (of the sedge) which Mr. Linton first detected in July 

 1890, but' " careful search led to the discovery of a few withering 

 spikes .... and on one of these a single fruit remained." That 

 ■discovery was of a plant new to Watson's Peninsular Province (no. 1) ; 

 for in his Compendium of the Cyhele Britannica (1870) it was 

 recorded from Provinces 2-5 only, and in " Lat. 51-52 or 53 : Sussex, 

 Gloucester, Monmouth, Hereford, Worcestershire." Its present 

 census number in Lond. Cat. ed. 10 (1908) is eleven, for it has also 

 been found in Devon, Hants, and other counties. 



