Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/142

 126 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

formsgrowing; in Chesliire, which lie considered to range under " four tme species," Ji. liettrojjliyllus, Sibtii., R. trichophyllus, Chaix, R. circinatus, Sibth., and R. flnitans. Lam. " lleport on the Open Air Vegetation at the lloyal Botanic Garden." By Mr. M'Nab. " Statistics of the Botanical Class in the University of Edinburgh from 1860 till 1870 inclusive, being a Continuation of the Statistics from 1777 to 1859," published in the Society's Transactions, vol. vi. p. 296-298. By Prof Balfour.

��Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. — Jan. 9th. — J. Baxendell, President of the Section, in the chair. " On Carex Jiam, L., and its allies, of the Manchester Flora," by Charles Bailey ; illustrated 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. (Ederi, Sm., and of Grindon's ' Man- chester Flora,' and the C. flava, var. /3 of ' Buxton's Guide.' The true C. flava (a. gtnnbia, E.B.), as stated long ago by Mr. Buxton, is nowhere met with in the district. Specimens of G. (Ederi, Ehrh., from Mere Mere, the locality mentioned in Buxton's 'Botanical Guide,' were re- cently exhibited at a meeting of the Society, and the sandhills at South- port 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-fava, ^. lepidocarpa, as usually having the male spikes sessile or subsessile, and the female spikes as being all approxi- mate, or the lowest a little remote when its stalk is said to be wholly in- cluded within the sheath. The Manchester plant, however, lias 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 produced, 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 S|uke. There are two forms of C. lepidocarpa, Tausch., in the district ; the more common one, which occurs in lields and open ground, has the leaves as long as or longer than the somewhat thick and rigid stems, but the latter are with- out 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 (Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc.) closely approaches this form, but it is less rigid, and has only a single spike of fruits. The other form, occurring in damp ground amongst long grass, is much taller and more slender than that just named; its stems exceed the leaves, and the fruit is less inflated, so as to be gradually attenuated into a beak. Some plants of this form, which I collected at Oakmere, Chesliire, and at Whaley Bridge, Derby- shire, near the reservoir, agree very well with the plant issued in Wirtgen's Herb. Plant. Select., fasc. vi. n. 267, the chief dift'erence being that the Rhenish plant has the beak more recurved. Billot's specimens of G. flava, L., from the fosse of the citadel of Strasburg (n. 2158), quoted by Dr. Syme as synonymous with his var. a. geiiuina, do not quite agree with any Scotch or north English plant which I have gathered or seen. Dr. Syme describes the female spikes of genaina as not contiguous, but they are all contiguous in the Strasburg plant, while the leaves are

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