20 Note on Carex loliacea. 



as 



pressis erectis."* This character was evidently drawn from the 

 specimen in his herbarium marked fol. 2, the source of which is 

 not recorded, and from which Kunth has also recently derived 

 an additional description of C. loliacea; while the fol. 1, holds a 

 Swedish specimen of a different plant, sent by Swartz under the 

 name of C. loliacea, which (judging from a memorandum made 

 on inspection several years ago) is most probably the C. tenella 

 of Schkuhr. This C. tenella, Willdenow remarks, is the same 

 C. loliacea, but is incorrectly delineated and described by 

 Schkuhr as having the spikelets masculine at the summit. Here 

 is the beginning of the confusion, soon further complicated by 

 Schkuhr himself, in which these two very distinct species have 

 ever since been involved. 



Schkuhr established and figured his C. tenella, in the first part 

 of his work on Garices, in 1802, (No. 15, t. Pp, f. 104,) upon a 

 plant which he found in the herbarium of a friend, who was 

 entirely ignorant of its source, or even whether he had collected 

 it himself or received it from a correspondent. This friend, as 

 he elsewhere states, was Hedwig. Schkuhr's herbarium shows 

 that he subsequently received the same species from Sweden, 

 through Thunberg, ticketed " C. loliacea, Linn. In Nordlandia 

 Norvegiae rarius, per Nordlandiam Sueciae copiose." In the 

 same work, Schkuhr also figured (t. E, f. 24) a plant of unre- 

 corded origin, which he took for the C. gracilis of " Ehrhart, 

 Gram. [P hytophylac ?] 78." The specimen which Schkuhr fig- 

 ured is not preserved in his herbarium ; but in a paper fixed to the 

 folio under this name, marked " Saamen," I found the very perigy- 

 mum and achenium (i. e. ) separately delineated in his figure. The 

 perigynmm is distinctly beaked, the staminate flowers are plainly 

 depicted as occupying the summit of the spikelets, and the whole 

 figure so nearly agrees with the smaller states of C. rosea, that I 

 can scarcely doubt it was derived from that plant. In place of 

 the specimen actually figured, the herbarium of Schkuhr contains 

 one with a printed ticket, " C. gracilis, Ehrh. : Upsal," which is 

 probably an authentic specimen from Ehrhart's original collection, 

 but which, as it certainly is not the plant which Schkuhr has 

 depicted, I suppose to have been received at a later period, and 

 that the specimen which served for the figure in question was 

 then discarded. 



On obtaining possession of this authentic specimen (as I take 

 it to be) of Ehrhart's C. gracilis, Schkuhr could not fail to 

 perceive that it was precisely the same species with his own 

 C. tenella, and with what had already been sent him from Swe- 

 den under the name of C. loliacea. Accordingly, in his Supple- 

 ment, nsnm h« nnitpr? th* t wn f\»,* ~uui:,: i_.--^.- *h* 



Wild. Sp. PI. 4, p. 237. 



