161 
Original Articles. 
NOTE ON CAREX FLAVA, L. 
By F. Townsenp, M.A., F.L.S. 
“Carex flava var. argillacea, MS. Parkhurst Forest, Isle of 
Wight.’’—I contributed specimens, thus labelled, to the Botanical 
Exchange Club last year, and they are noticed i in the pres as ‘a 
luxuriant form of C. lepidocarpa, Tausch.” 
The plant is certainly C. lepidocarpa of Syme, Eng. Bot. Ed. 
IIT., but it is not C. lepidocarpa of Tausch, the original desecriber of 
that supposed species, and though, = a sense, it may be con- 
venient, yet I think it incorrect to ly Tausch’s name to a 
plant with characters so opposite to xe: given by him for his UC. 
lepidocarpa. What is C. lepidocarpa, Tausch ? Let the author of 
the species speak for himself. He supposed that sie distinct 
species were confounded under the name C. flava, L., in the 
‘ Allgemeine botanische Zeitung,’ No 12, p. 179 Roglnsbally 1884), 
he described both as follows :— 
Bei Oi Sear pests Spica g solitaria longe exserta, @ 2, 8 
remotis ovatis, infima pedunculata bractea lineari — elongata 
imbricatis, culmo subfiliformi scabro.” ei Host, germ. 
— 1 t. 68 (pl. florifera).” 
6. C. flava. an 3 solitaria subsessili, 9 2, 8 subconfertis 
ovatis, infima pedunculata bractea foliacea elongata vaginante 
suffulta, stigmatibus 8, fructibus inflatis tumidis ovatis nervosis 
ar. C. 
p. 269). C. flava and C. lepidocarpa grow in intermingled, and are 
easily distinguished from one another, both in flower and in fruit ; 
therefi es I have myself always recognised them as distinct 
species.’ 
2 The conser: figured by Host, and referred to by Tausch asrepre- 
senting his C. lepidocarpa, is 154 inches in height from the collar 
‘a the root to the apex of the male spike; the leaves are somew what 
narrow and not half the length of the stem, the latter is rather 
SR Te Ns eee emmeet nae Snare ae 
* The ae is translated from the German. ‘Tausch could not have 
known . Ederi; he ariesesig Gh a for that ig oe - included in it, 
a dwarf fo rm flava, W which botanists now usually 1 C. lepidocarpa 
in herbaria. Billot distributed a ig)  Ederi similarly deat fora of C. flava, 
ve seen them labelled c. sicoshy by continental botanists: instances 
occur in the British Museum Her 
N.s. von. 10. [duNE, 1881 ] ¥ 
