NOTES ON SOME nERTFOEDSHIEE CAEICES. 371 



growth and more tufted root-stock ; in the more luxuriant herbage of 

 a brighter and lighter green ; in the roughness of the upper part of 

 the stem, with the lowest bract considerably longer, and generally 

 reaching the male spikelet ; the female spikelets fewer, with glumes * 

 of a lighter colour, and proportionally narrower and more inclined to 

 be acute ; in the spreading perigynia of a lighter and yellower tint 

 with a rougher beak,f which is devoid of the scarious membrane at 

 the orifice ; the male spikelet is more slender and of a lighter colour, 

 but, as observed by Hoppe, far more dense, so that the glumes are 

 with difficulty separated. Its nearest ally seems to be C. lepido- 

 carpa.\ 



On the other hand, C. Hornschuchiana has a more branched root- 

 stock and scattered mode of growth, with the herbage shorter, more 

 scanty, and of a darker, duller green ; the stem is smooth and 

 wiry ; the bracts shorter ; the female spikelets darker, longer, and 

 much more distant, with broader ovate glumes with a wide scarious 

 margin ; the perigynia are of a fuller green when young, and when 

 mature with a conspicuous white membrane at the orifice ; the glumes 

 of the male spikelet are laxer ; it has altogether much of the habit 

 and general appearance of C. distans. It usually represents C.fulva 

 in our herbaria. § 



While C. Hornschuchiana has been almost universally recognised 

 on the Continent as possessing undoubted claims to the rank of an 

 independent series there have been various opinions as to the exact 

 grade and position of C. xanthocarpa. The names fulvo-flava and 

 flavo-Hornschuchiana applied at different times by F. Schultz will 

 speak for themselves. || By Godron (" These sur I'hybridite," p. 2i) it 

 was reckoned as a hybrid between C. distans and C. Hornschuchiana ; 

 and more recently M. Grenier in his " Flore de la Chaine Jurassique," 

 while denying the possibility of its being a hybrid derived from C. 

 Hornschuchiana, on account of its frequent occurrence in localities 

 from which the supposed parent is entirely absent (an argument 

 which applies with equal force in the case of the Hertfordshire plant), 

 has reduced it to C. flava as a merely sterile variety, and has stated 

 that on one occasion he found on the same spikelet every intermediate 

 form of perigynium between the ordinary jf?fl«;« and that of the present 

 plant. Should this prove to be universally the case the opinion of 

 M. Grenier would coincide in a remarkable manner with that of Good- 

 enough. M. Duval, who claims to have observed the sterile forms of C. 

 (Ederi, flava, distans, and Hornschuchiana, attributed their occurrence 

 to the effects of the late frosts of spring (Gren. 1. c, pt. 2, p. 857). The 



* The difference of shape in the glumes is well shown in Eeichenbach's 

 figures (Ic. V. 8, No. 620, 621). 



t The beak is more sleuder than that represented in E. B., 1295. 



X Hoppe, however, considers that C. ^'fulva" and ^ava scarcely resemble 

 each other except in the very long bracts which extend beyond the stalk. Ho 

 may have had only the typical y/ffya in view. 



§ Schuliz (Flora, 18o4, p. 471) mentions that all his English specimens of 

 C. fulva belonged to Hornsrhuchiana. 



II Dr. Boswell considers his C. fulva, var. sterilis, " a very remarkable plant, 

 of which " he " had seen no British specimens," to be a hybrid between C. fu/va 

 {Hornschuchiana) and flava. lie refers to it ihe C. fulva of Koch = C. xantho. 

 carpa, Degl. 



2 B 2 



