54 



On Carex Muricata. By James Hardy. 



Carex muricata, from being a member of both the Edinburgh 

 and Northumberland and Durham Floras, might be expected 

 also to belong to the country intervenient. In Winch's time, 

 its known distribution was restricted to the vicinity of Dar- 

 lington ; but the editors of the " New Flora " inform us 

 that it is " frequent on dry banks," in all the subdivisions of 

 the district. For my part, I have not found it so prevalent, 

 or may have overlooked it ; having neither observed it on the 

 magnesian limestone of the sea-coast of Durham ; nor near 

 Newcastle, and other places which I have visited. For some 

 years I have observed it as a Berwickshire plant, growing, 

 but not in quantity, in dry fissures of grey wacke rocks in the 

 dean near St. Helen's church, Oldcambus. Again, in North- 

 umberland, it is pretty abundant in Hazelton-rig wood, above 

 Alnham, on the bare gravelly out-cr3p of porphyry, at about 

 the height in which Mr. Baker gathered it at Alwinton, viz., 

 750 feet. Another station is on the road -side going to Lang- 

 leyford, near the foot of the bank, below Middleton Hall 

 shepherd's house ; and there is a Carex with similar foliage 

 among dry rocks, near the Pin well, behind Wooler. It is 

 thus represented in the Border Flora on both sides of the 

 Tweed. 



Carex muricata is an old constituted species, having been 

 first indicated, but not thus named, by Caspar Bauhin in his 

 " Pinax," " Prodromus," and " Theatrum Botanicum ; " and 

 he comprehended under it four varieties. He had remarked 

 it near Basil before 1578, for in that year he found it for the 

 third instance in moist places at Padua. He was then in the 

 eighteenth year of his age. Padua, where he studied anatomy 

 and botany 1577-8, was then much resorted to for its Univer- 

 sity, " famous for Physitians, who had here a garden for 

 Simples;" the garden having been established in 1533. The 

 superintendent of the physic garden, at this period, was 

 Guilandinus or Wieland, a distinguished man, who had 

 travelled over the Levant as well as Europe, cut his name 

 upon the Pyramids, and been redeemed from Moorish cap- 

 tivity ; who had supplemented his hard bought experience 

 with all the recondite lore of the age ; and was thus capa- 

 citated to speak with authority, as was then the fashion, on 

 the medical plants of the ancients. Our eager student brought 

 the Carex to his professor, and was told that it was the 



