700 MR. A. BENNETT ON CAREX PARADOXA AND LASTREA CRISTATA. 
so much so it is impossible to walk in the marsh without crushing 
the fronds ; there are thousands of specimens, from minute plants, 
one to two inches high, to others two feet six inches. In some parts 
the ground is very wet, in June often having two to twelve inches 
of water on it, Cladium occurring in great beds, with Schoenus 
nigricans. 
In most counties this species is becoming very rare ; it has been 
sought in vain in recent years in Suffolk ; almost (quite 1) extinct 
in Stafford. I know of no recent record in Notts ; in Chester 
a few specimens may remain ; oven if extant in Yorkshire, it is 
yearly decreasing. In all other stations it is nearly gone, and 
probably the only place where it is in any abundance is in 
E. Norfolk. 
In the original edition of ‘ English Botany,’ Lastrea-filix-mas 
was figured for cristata on plate 1949; the true plant being on 
plate 2125, reproduced by Syme as t. 1853, but it is not a good 
figure. 
The plant called L. uliginosa , Newman has been variously 
estimated as a species, a variety, and a hybrid. Some have regarded 
cristata, uliginosa, and spinulosa as one species, connected together 
by a series of intermediates. So far as spinulosa and cristata is 
concerned, I carefully sought in the Horsey station for any 
specimens that I could not refer to cristata at a glance, but I could 
find none. But spinulosa there does shade off in forms that it is 
very difficult to assign to or separate from uliginosa. 
At Horsey I examined hundreds of specimens of cristata, but 
I could find no appreciable difference, except what one would 
expect from some being in wetter places than others. 
The best distinction between uliginosa and spinulosa seems to 
me to be in the former having the whole frond and pinnae curving 
upwards, the less cut pinnae, and the whole frond being stiffer and 
more rigid looking. 
Where cristata : grows alone, there seems to be no uliginosa. 
If these three plants are one species why does not cristata vary 
in itself towards spinulosa ? While it is difficult to assign some 
specimens between uliginosa and spinulosa, it is never so between 
cristata and spinulosa. 
