102 
Some discussion having taken place at a recent meeting of 
the section, in regard to the distribution of the Carex fiava 
group in this district, I present the following notes upon the 
matter, illustrating them by a large suite of specimens. 
The prevailing form in the district, and one very common 
to the south of Manchester, is the Carex lepidocarpa 
Tausch.; this is the C. (Ederl Sm., and of Grindon’s Man- 
chester Flora, and the C. fiava var. j3 of Buxton’s Guide. 
The true C. fiava (a- genuina E.B.), as stated long ago by 
Mr. Buxton, is nowhere met with in the district. Speci- 
mens of G. CEderi Ehrh., from Mere Mere, the locality 
mentioned in Buxton’s Botanical Guide, were recently 
exhibited at a meeting of the Society, and the sandhills at 
Southport are, so far as I know, the only other locality in 
the neighbourhood for this species. 
There is some confusion in the nomenclature of the group ) 
and the characters given in our standard authority — English 
Botany, 3rd edition — do not altogether dispel it. In that 
work, Dr. Syme describes C. eu-flava, (3. lepidocarpa as 
usually having the male spikes sessile or subsessile, and the 
female spikes as being all approximate, or the lowest a 
little remote when its stalk is said to be wholly included 
within the sheath. The Manchester plant however has the 
male spike stalked, the peduncles being often of great 
length, while the female spikes are scarcely approximate, 
but rather scattered, and the lower spike is generally pro- 
duced, its stalk being conspicuously exserted. The fruits are 
more narrowed at the base than represented in “English 
Botany,” and the bracts are very long, much exceeding the 
male spike. 
There are two forms of C. lepidocarpa Tausch. in the 
district; the more common one, which occurs in fields and 
open ground, has the leaves as long as or longer than the 
somewhat thick and rigid stems, but the latter are without 
the roughness at the summit described by Grenier and 
Godron, in their Flore de France; the fruit is slightly inflated, 
and the beak long but straight. The single specimen which 
I possess of Billot’s No. 2159 (FI. Gall. ot. Germ, exsicc.) 
