1862.] THE GENUS LUZULA. 291 



palustriSy M. versicolor, and Thymus ScrpyUum. From this walk 

 ^ye returned to the inu at Monteith^ and after dining there took 

 the road to the Port of Monteith station, where we took the train 

 to Stirling- ; on our Avay to the rail we found the Vaccinium 

 Myrtillus axid V. Viiis-Idcea, Geranium cohimbinum, etc. Late at 

 night we arrived in Stirling, very tired, and very well pleased 

 with our excursion and its results. 



THE GENUS LUZULA. 

 Remarks on the Genus Luzula. By John Sim. 



Several of our larger genera, as Salix, Rubus, and Hieracium, 

 contain an inconvenient number of species, or mere varieties de- 

 pending on soil and situation, though they are by the compilers 

 of our British floras considered as distinct species ; this statement 

 may easily be proved by any one who possesses an herbarium 

 containing these genera, the so-called species insensibly merging 

 into each other in a majority of cases. Mr. Bentham, in his 

 'British Flora,' has (I consider) wisely abridged the quasi-ST^ecies, 

 of these genera. 



The genus Luzula is at present in a very different condition ; 

 instead of having too many species 'it has in my opinion too few. 

 On referring to the British floras of Hooker, Babington, etc., I 

 find that there is a species (for such 1 consider it) which is very 

 unsatisfactorily accounted for ; Hooker appears to notice the plant 

 in question under Luzula campestris, but passes unnoticed its 

 most distinctive character. Babington notices it under L. multi- 

 flora, but only as a variety. In the ' Handbook of the British 

 Plants ' it is placed in the species multiflora under a, a variety with 

 stalked clusters, and there is a second also, a var. j3, with clusters 

 sessile. Now this is quite correct that two plants exist possessing 

 these two characters, but this is not all : these two forms of Luzula 

 I hold to be two distinct and independent species, and not varieties 

 at all ; I cannot divine for what reason they were ever considered 

 to be only different forms of one and the same plant, but this I 

 know from observation, that no two species of Luzula are more 

 unlike than the assumed varieties a and y8. Let us examine 

 them both. 



Var, a (see ' Handbook of British Plants,' p. 274) is a much 



