Note on Car ex loliacea. 19 



cient signs of extrinsic extirpating change or convulsion, makes 

 it almost as reasonable to speculate with Brocchi,* on the possi- 

 bility that species like individuals may have had the cause of their 

 death inherent in their original constitution, independently of 

 changes in the external world, and that the term of their exist- 

 ence, or the period of exhaustion of the prolific force, may have 

 been ordained from the commencement of each species. 



Art. III. — Note upon Car ex loliacea, Linn., and C. gracilis, Ehrh. ; 



by A. Gray. 



Under the name of Car ex lohacea. two distinct species have 

 long been confounded, which, although they have been of late 

 to some extent distinguished, yet their history and synonymy 

 still require elucidation. 



Linnaeus established his C. loliacea upon a Swedish plant, 

 indicated in the Flora Suetica, No. 840, to which the specific 

 name was first applied in the Species Plantarum, with the 

 phrase: " C. spiculis subovatis sessilibus remotis androgynis, 

 capsulis ovatis teretiusculis muticis divaricatis." He further de- 

 scribes it as having from four to eight small ovate spikelets scat- 

 tering at the apex of the culm, and the perigynia "ovate, obtuse, 

 pointless, and rounded on the lower side f and proceeds to com- 

 pare it with C. muricata, (which as to the Flora Suecica, is sta- 

 ted by Wahlenberg to be the 0. stellulata, Good,,) from which it 

 is said to differ in its smaller size, and in the less divaricate ob- 

 tuse fruit. I suppose that there is no authentic specimen pre- 

 served in the Linnaean herbarium. 



In the year 1802, Schkuhr figuredf and described what he, 

 with much hesitation, took for C. loliacea, remarking however 

 that this Linnasan species was a very doubtful plant, and that 

 what he had taken for it was probably only a variety of C. mu- 

 ricata ; which seems to have been the case. 



In the next year the real C. loliacea was, as I suppose, correctly 

 taken up by Wahlenberg, a botanist most likely to know the 

 Linnasan plant, who well characterized it as follows : u 0. spiculis 

 basi masmlis subdistantibus ternis paucifloris, squamis brevibus, 

 capsulis subovali-ellipticis ntrinqiie convexiusculis obtusis obtus- 

 tmgulis divaricatis, ore integerrimo, bracteolis setigeris, foliis an- 

 gustissimis/ ? | 



In 1805, Willdenow gave a new phrase, viz. " C. spica andro- 

 gyna composita, spiculis subquaternis inferne masculis subapprox- 

 imatis, stigmatibus binis, fructibus ellipticis obtusis nervosis com- 



* Cired by Lvell, " Principles of Geology," f!835,) vol. iii, p. 104. 

 t Reidgr. t. Ee, No. 91. ....... 



t Wahlenb. in Act. Holm. 1803. p. 147 



