Note on Carer loliacea. 21 
mistake he had made in figuring as ©. gracilis, something differ- 
ent from the Ehrhartian plant;) and, following the cue which 
been given him by Swartz, Willdenow, and Thunberg, erro- 
neously referred them both to C. loliacea, Linn. Under that 
species, consequently, these two synonyms have been generally 
cited ever since, notwithstanding the discrepancy in the posi- 
tion of the staminate flowers, which in ©. gracilis, Hhrh., (C. te- 
nella, Schk.,) are correctly described by Schkuhr as at the apex ; 
while those of C. loliacea are rightly characterized by Wahlen- 
berg and Willdenow, and indeed by all succeeding writers, as 
oceupying the base of the spikelets: and the difference in the 
perigynia, é&c. of the two species is not less decisive. Yet even 
Wahlenberg has unguardedly adduced the synonym in his Flora 
Lapponica; where he has given a further and most excellent 
account of the genuine C. loliacea, particularly contrasting it with 
his own C. tenuiflora, which is indeed the nearest related species. 
He notices the “squame albicantes, omnium tenuissime,” and 
well describes the perigynia as follows: ‘Capsule in singula 
spicula 3 vel 4, ita obtuse ut apice fere rotundate, utrinque con- 
vexiuscule nervose, ob formam suai seminibus Lolii temulenti 
While the C. loliacea, Linn., is, so far as I am aware, re- 
stricted to the north of Europe, the ©. gracilis, Hhrh. has ap- 
parently a wider range and is much more abundant in the new 
wey; who, while he noted its resemblance to C. loliacea, 
Schk., (tenella, Schk.,) conceived it to be distinct by its termi- 
nal staminate flowers—a point in which it does indeed differ 
from the true C. loliacea, but not from the plant which Schkuhr 
hamely, Nylander and Mr. Tuckerman. As to the former, my 
information is indirect. Ruprecht, in his recent critical enumera- 
tion of the plants which grow around St. Petersburg, has a * Ca- 
acea, L.., utrasque exposuit cl. Nylander in Spite. Fl. Fenn., ii, No. 
92 et 93.”+ I have rt acquaintance with the work of Nylander 
Nylander: ad oppidum Sardavale, F 
accord with the American C. disperma, and, so far as recollection 
Wahl. Fl. Lapp., p. 232.—In his Flora Suecica, he farther adds, that the 
erptules are a Fae or a half ise,” which is fully one-third longer than are 
of C. gracilis. " 
t In Historiam Stirp. Fl. Petropol. Diatribe, p. 84. 1849. 
