350 Lees : Note on Carex sylvatica var. capillanformis. 



an attraction for the botanist, I had hopes the plant might turn 

 out to be C. strigosa — as Dr. Lees tells me, a little-known, much- 

 misnamed species, which is not partial to limestone, and yet 

 the only certain S.W. Yorkshire habitat of which is in shade by 

 the stream at Heptonstall Eaves, where it runs over calcareous 

 Yoredale shale. 



The individual catkined shoots were nothing like so roDust 

 as C. sylvatica, and were moreover growing in the open, asso- 

 ciated with Hypericum quadra ngulum, Equisetum pahistre, 

 much Hypnum moss in matted growth through which grew 

 Orchis maculata, Juncus acutiflorus, supinus, and the Sedges 

 C. leporina, flacca (glauca), hirta and another. The hedge- 

 wood about includes Alder, Hazel, Wild Cherry, Acer cam- 

 pestre, Viburnum Opuhis, Salix cinerea and Sloe, with Dog-rose 

 and Rosa arvensis. Some five yards higher up the open wet 

 slope of the pasture, upon my third visit Dr. Lees detected 

 Lysimachia nemorum — strong evidence that a wood or thicket, 

 nothing so wet soiled as now (where the collieries and other 

 agents have interfered with natural drainage) once existed, 

 where now cattle are pastured — a district of varied woodland, 

 the very name of which, too, connotes the silvan of some bygone 

 time. 



In agreeing to this. Dr. Lees suggests that a fitting name 

 for this extreme, debased (through long interference with normal 

 stresses of growth) form or variety of Carex sylvatica Huds., 

 would be capillariformis, as in its hair-like spike stalks, in 

 twos or threes from the uppermost sheath it simulates Carex 

 caHllaris. 



NOTE ON CAREX SYLVATICA var. CAPILLARIFORMIS. 



F. ARNOLD LEES, M.R.C.S. 

 Leeds. 



Mr. Lee's Hey-beck-dale Carex, which I have seen in situ, 

 adds another spoke to my wheel or thesis of Change — not fixity, 

 even yet — both in Plant Character as in Distribution. As 

 ' Ichabod ' — the glory hath departed ! — must be written of 

 many a nook and corner of our land once replete with floral 

 and arboreal Treasure valleys, so such constituents as have 

 survived this denudation, or conversion, under long-acting 

 newer conditions not wholly lethal, change too ; and in (at least) 



Naturalist, 



