1043 



time that he has mentioned ; but for the correctness of his statement, 

 I will only refer the reader to Baines's ' Flora of Yorkshire,' for there 

 he will find Ascham-bogs given as a station for the plant in question; 

 and as this book was published in the year 1840, it will serve to show 

 that this plant must have been discovered previous to 1841. 



Mr. Luxford tells us that the stem of C. paniculata has three acute 

 angles, with the interstices flat ; while the angles of teretiuscula are 

 obtuse, with projecting lines on the sides. He also tells us that the 

 stems of the paradoxa resemble the latter. In this Mr. L. agrees with 

 most of our writers on the British Carices; and indeed we are told in 

 'English Botany,' that C. teretiuscula takes its name from the circum- 

 stance of its having a stem of a peculiar form. I shall not say here 

 how far the form of the stems of Carices may be taken into account 

 as characters whereby to distinguish them as species ; neither shall I 

 say how far these forms are constant. But this I will say, that my 

 Carex pseudo-paradoxa {those specimens that were sent by Dr. Wood 

 to Mr. Bahington) has a stem that has three acute angles, with the 

 interstices Jiat, or, if I were to speak with exactness, I might say the 

 interstices are concave. Mr. L. tells us that these characters indicate 

 specific identity. 



As regards the perigyuia and nuts of the Carices in question, I 

 might say, taking the rule and leaving out the exceptions, that the pe- 

 rigynia of C. paniculata and paradoxa are nearly the same, so far as 

 the ribs are concerned, and their greater or less proportion of convex- 

 ity is variable in both ; in my pseudo-paradoxa and the teretiuscula 

 the ribs are the same, but the former has a perigynium that is much 

 broader at the base. 



If we take a series of the nuts (that is to say what belongs to one 

 specimen) of C. paniculata, paradoxa and my pseudo-paradoxa, it will 

 be found that their resemblance is so close that it is not possible to 

 distinguish them with certainty ; and if, on the contrary, we take a se- 

 ries of the nuts of C. teretiuscula, we shall find their outline to be very 

 different from the other three, the prevailing number will be found to 

 resemble Mr. Leighton's figure of the nut of that species. 



It must be understood that I here speak of the fruit of these Carices 

 in a state of maturity : this I say with so much certainty, that I shall 

 not have to retract the words by saying that "I am inclined to think" 

 otherwise, as nothing is more easy than to know when the fruit of a 

 Carex is mature. 



As Mr. Luxford takes the ' London Catalogue of British Plants ' as 

 some authority in this disputed point, I hope that he will allow me to 



