129 



fid orifice to a little above the middle, where it diverges into five ribs, which agaia 

 converge and unite a little above the base." Now I am at a loss to know how any one 

 could ever think that the starving of a plant would make all these changes of charac- 

 ter ; — to make the five-ribbed fruit of Carex remota become very smooth, and to turn 

 plano-convex into one that is convex on both sides, and lastly its bifid orifice into one 

 that is entire; not to say anything about the number of stamens, which, in the days 

 of Linnaeus, would almost have removed it into some other class. Of Carex Mielicho- 

 feri I know nothing, except from the figure in ' English Botany, ' and what is said by 

 Smith in 'English Flora;' but of Carex speirostachya I possess specimens from Wales 

 and others from near Lancaster. The plant is certainly a very difi'erent one from C. 

 fulva, and a section of the ripe nut of C. speirostachya would have been very conspi- 

 cuous amongst Mr. Leighton's figures of those parts. Among the strange forms that 

 I have gathered this season, I see there is Carex Ecklonii, Kunze, ' Supplement zu 

 Schkuhr's Riedgrazer (Carices), tab. 5; but how far this is distinct as a species, I will 

 leave to the judgment of others. In the last edition of the 'British Flora,' Carex spei- 

 rostachya is referred as a variety to the C. fulva of Goodenough. Goodenough tells 

 lis that his C. fulva is only a variety of C. flava; Leighton tells us that C. flava and 

 Gi)deri are the same; and if I add the C. Ecklonii of Kunze to the list, we shall see 

 that it will take Carex speirostachya, fulva, flava, CEderi and Ecklonii to make Carex 

 flava : now I should think, for my own part, that these are sufficient to make one spe- 

 cies, if not, we may add the Trasus Hostianus of Gray, &c. — Samuel Gibson ; Hebden 

 Bridge, October 18, LS41. 



8l. liemarhs on the List of Plants, (Phytol. 77). I embrace this opportunity of 

 making a few remarks on the list of species and varieties said to be new to the British 

 Flora, and described in Leighton's ' Flora of Shropshire.' For my own part I find 

 (with the exception of the Rubi) very little that is new in this list; for surely we cannot 

 consider such plants as Oxalis Acetosella ^. purpurea new to the British Flora, since 

 we find it mentioned in the fifth edition of Withering's Botany, as growing in a lane 

 between North Owram and Halifax ; but that locality has long been destroyed ; the 

 plant however was rediscovered about six years since by Mr. Riley of Halifax, about 

 a mile from the place mentioned by Withering. Next we find the plant mentioned 

 by Gray in his work, at page 631, where he says — "plant small, rather villous, petals 

 bluish-purple." Again we find in Smith's ' English Flora,' at page 323, flore purpu- 

 reo, Dill, in Rail Syn. 281. Ranunculus fluitans and tripartitus, we received descrip- 

 tions of twenty-one years ago in Gray's Botany. The Hypericum tetrapterum of 

 Leighton is Hypericum quadrangulum of Smith, &c., so that we have nothing new in 

 that except the name; Hypericum maculatum I have not been able to find in Mr. 

 Leighton's work. — Id. 



82. Avena alpina, (Phytok 75). In reply to Mr. Simpson's note on Avena alpina, 

 I would say that the plant was known to Mr. Baines as having been found in the 

 county, as I gathered the plant, in company with Mr. Baines, in June, 1836, about 

 two miles from Tadcaster. The reason of its not appearing in the Yorkshire Flora is 

 that we do not consider it distinct as a species from Avena pratensis, as we have exa- 

 mined numerous specimens, and find none of the characters that are laid down by 

 Hooker to be constant. The plant I believe to be a very common one, as I received 

 specimens last season from Buxton in Derbyshire, and from Wales; I also received 

 specimens from the Yorkshire side of Teesdale. In addition to the above localities, I 

 have a specimen of Avena alpina which I gathered near Settle in 1838. In order to 



L 



