NOTES ON SOME BRITISH SEDGES. 79 



that view : — '' This plant is scarcely removed from C. flava. How- 

 ever, it differs from it in having the angles of the culm sharp and 

 rough. The female spikes are remote, oblong and acute, not round ; 

 the lowermost is supported by a long footstalk, half of which nearly 

 appears above the vagina. Besides, it has scarcely ever more than 

 two female spikes. The lowermost bractea is erect, and not divari- 

 cated. The capsules are not divaricated, but patent, and are 

 slightly divided at the summit. I regret that I have had no oppor- 

 tunity of cultivating it." 



To my great disappointment, no authentic specimens of fidva 

 are to be found in the Kew collection, though (oddly enough) a 

 sheet of C. Jiava from Goodenough's herbarium contains two speci- 

 mens of unmistakable _/?rti;a x Honischnchiana, which indeed would 

 be well represented by his right-hand figure. However, plants 

 labelled "0. fidva Good." by Fries!, Hoppe!, Traunsteiner !, 

 Schultz !, Gay !, are, one and all, that hybrid. It seems to me that 

 the balance of evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of our retaining 

 G. Hornschuchiana Hoppe as the true specific name, and dropping 

 C.fulva Good, altogether, as was done by Babington. 



C. Hornschuchiana X Oederi. Herr Klikenthal agrees with me 

 in referring to this hybrid two gatherings (the name " Oederi''' being 

 used in the sense indicated below) : viz. (1) from the shore of Loch 

 Tulla, Inveroran, Argyleshire, 1889 ; and (2) from a wet moor near 

 Loch Ussie, above Conan, E. Eoss. In the latter case the second 

 parent was C. Oederi var. elatior Andersson. 



0. FLAVA L. var. minor Town send. If the view here taken 

 respecting C. Oederi is correct, this descriptive name for our com- 

 monest English form can be retained, at least provisionally. I 

 may as well say at once that the views regarding 0. flava and its 

 European allies propounded by Prof. Bailey, and quoted in Journ. 

 Bot. 1889, pp. 331-4, appear to me somewhat unconvincing (and in 

 one instance, hereafter alluded to, distinctly misleading). 



C. Oederi Retz. Oeder's original plant is figured in Flora 

 Danica, tab. 371 (1770), and erroneously referred by him to C. divisa 

 Hudson. Herr Klikenthal says that it "certainly belongs to 

 0. Oederi" (i.e. sensu auctorum, non Bailey). A careful study of 

 the plate has convinced me that he is right ; the drawing is indeed 

 somewhat crude, especially as regards the important fruit-characters, 

 but the habit, size and arraugement of spikelets, &c., fit that far 

 better than our flava, minor. The stations given also point the 

 same way : — " Locus. Copiose in convallibus collium aren^ mobilis 

 (Dunen) insulae Sylt & Eyderstettensibus " — just the sort of locality 

 which would produce C. Oederi of Koch, Syme, &c. 



It is curious that this species should so persistently have been 

 assigned by most writers (Fries, Summa Veg. Scand., is an exception) 

 to Ehrhart, whose mention of it, in Beitrdge zur NaturJmnde (1790), 

 p. 83, is of the briefest: — "79. Carex Oederi Retz. Hannovera.'' 

 The reference is to a plant in Decas 8 of some (probably published) 

 collection, respecting which no information seems to be now ac- 

 cessible. This is no better than a nomen nudum, in the absence of 



