SllOKT >rOTES. 113 



wards cooked as a puree, like spinach, and like asparagus heads, being 

 served with melted butter. Tliey proved flavourless and insipid, but 

 not indigestible, and 1 can understand that in the absence of all other 

 fresh vegetables they might prove useful.'" 



Carex pseudo-paeadoxa S. Gibson. In this Journal for 1916 

 (p. 14) Mr. C. E. Salmon revives the controversy that existed in 

 1S42— 1-4 respecting this j^lant, when it was decided by every botanist 

 who took part in the discussion, except Gibson himself, that it was 

 synonymous with C. teretiusciila Good var. Elirhartiana Hoppe : 

 the somewhat acrimonious correspondence concerning the plant is to 

 be found in the Phi/to1o[/ist of that date. Seaman's Moss, the locality 

 whence came the specimens of the plant in dispute, was a very small 

 piece of boggy land by the side of the Bridgwater Canal about a 

 mile to the west of Altrincham, Cheshire. In this were four pits, 

 round the edges of which was found in considerable quantity Carex 

 teretluscula and the var. JEhrhartiana, and in deeper w^ater small 

 tufts of C. paniculafa, very inferior to those frequently found in 

 Cheshire Meres and therefore not generally gathered for specimens. 

 I lived little more than a mile from the spot and my recollection of it 

 dates from 1857 to 1871, during which period, in company with my 

 friend and neighbour George E. Hunt, we very frequently collected 

 specimens there. Hunt gathered the " beautiful rang-e of specimens 

 of the teretiiiscula-Eh rha rf iana series" referred to in Lord de Tabley's 

 Flora of Cheshire (p. 821) and I assisted at very many of his visits 

 for this purpose. Mr. Salmon suggests that Gibson found and described 

 a different plant from that discussed by the other botanists- I submit 

 that it is incredible that so observant and critical a botanist as Hunt 

 could have failed to notice such a plant among the hundreds of speci- 

 mens he gathered and critically examined, while Gibson found nothing 

 else in the one visit he was said to have made to the locality — if in- 

 deed even the one visit was ever made, which I doubt. I do not 

 forget that I deal with the date 1857-1871 and that the date of 

 the controversy was 1842-44, but one can hardly su})pose that 

 G. pseudo-paradoxa entirely disappeared while C. teretiusciila sur\'ived. 

 llichard Buxton (1786-1865), author of the Botanical Guide to 

 Manchester (1849), told me that he thought Gibson never collected 

 specimens at Seaman's Moss to which place he guided all the other 

 disputants ; whether Gibson went there or not, specimens were col- 

 lected by Dr. J. B. Wood of Manchester on 1 July, 1843, and sent to 

 him, and these he named C. pseudo-paradoxa . I possess one sheet of 

 such specimens, which appear to me to be C. teretluscula var. 

 Ehrhartiana. I have submitted it to Mr. Salmon, who determines 

 them to be C. teretluscula — the identical specimens that Gibson 

 affirmed to be his pseudo-paradoxa ! I should be glad to know where 

 G. E. Hunt's herbarium is located — his mosses went to Kew, but I 

 believe the rest were given to some County Natural History Museum. 

 In it are specimens of 0. panicidata from Seaman's Moss Pits which 

 1 should like to see. — Spencer H. Bickiiam. 



