So 



GERANIUM MACRORHIZUM 

 AND CAREX GIBSONI IN WEST YORKSHIRE. 



ARTHUR BENNETT, F.L.S. 



In the lately-published excellent ' Flora of West Yorkshire,' Mr. F. A. 

 Lees has recorded the first-named plant under the name of G. nodosum, 

 with a note — ' no further information.' As the history of this plant 

 may help to show how ambiguities, etc., get into Floras, I will give 

 it as concisely as possible. In the first volume of ' The Phytologist,' 

 p. 525, Mr. H. C Watson enquires whether Mr. S. Gibson is the 

 Mr. Gibson connected with whose name Geranium nodosum appears 

 in the New Botanist's Guide. At p. 556 Mr. Gibson replies — ' If the 

 Geranium in question be any Geranium which I sent to Mr. Bowman, 

 it will be G. pyrenaicum, and the locality would be Washerlane, 

 near Halifax.' At p. 588 Mr. Watson replies that the plant 

 may be nodosum, but certainly is not pyrenaicum. Lastly, 

 Mr. H. C. Watson in Comp. Cybele Brit., p. 495, remarks — 

 •Geranium macror/iizum ? Prov. 13. Washerlane, near Halifax. 

 Mr. S. Gibson. Ambiguity.' He mentions the record in N. B. Guide 

 and Phytologist, and remarks — ' The specimen is a mere scrap, the 

 top of a flowering stem or branch, and assuredly wide away from 

 G pyrenaicum. It may, perchance, be the old garden-flower above 

 named ; the fragment itself perhaps picked in a garden. But 

 ' Washerlane' might be examined by a resident botanist.' 



[Watson's herbarium is now at Kew, and the specimen of 

 Geranium in question clearly belongs to G. macrorhizum. There 

 were two well-known botanical Mr. Bowmans. This is R. B. Bowman 

 of Newcastle. — J.G.B.] 



Carex gibsoni Bab. was first described in the Annals of Nat. 

 Hist., ii, p. 168, t. 5. In the second edition of his ' Manual,' Prof. 

 Babington remarks, p. 362 : ' This very remarkable plant may, as seems 

 generally suspected, be an abnormal form of some species (perhaps 

 C. acuta , as suggested by Dr. Boott), but after a careful re-examina- 

 tion of it, I am unable to refer it to any one.' On a specimen in 

 Borrer's herbarium at Kew, Dr. Boott has written — 'I am glad I have 

 seen this ; it must be a form of C. goodenovii or c&spitosa (stricta G.). 

 It will not do to establish a species on such specimens. It is curious 

 as a variety, I should say of C. goodenovii. ,' The fruit and glumes 

 are remarkably long ; the latter are whitish or yellowish at the tips. 

 I think there is no doubt it comes under C. goodenovii. 



Naturali.'t, 



