to repay the search. The true Saxifraga ccespitosa was
found upon Ben-na-bourd by Mr. Macnab; and on the
same range of rocks which produced the present novelty,
were gathered {Jarex atrata, Juncus castaneus, Salix lanata*,
S. reticulata, and other rare species, Hieracium alpinum,
Phteum alpinum, Veronica alpina, Serratula alpina, &c.
Carex Vahlii grows in small tufts furnished with somewhat
creeping roots. The stems are from six inches to a
foot in height, straight, rigid, triangular and rough, especially
towards the summit. Leaves rather short and soft,
from a line to a line and a half in breadth, flattish, tapering
to a very acute point, rough at the edges. Bractea generally
rising a little above the spikes, narrow, acute, keeled,
with hardly any sheath, rough at the edges and keel.
Spikes 3—4, roundish or shortly oblong, collected into a
head; the lowest one supported on a short stalk about two
lines in length. The barren flowers occur generally at the
base of the terminal spike, but are sometimes also produced
at the apex. Calycine glumes of the fertile flowers dark
brown or even almost black, broadly ovate, obtuse; those
of the barren flowers paler, oblong, somewhat lanceolate.
Fruit obovate, longer than the calyx, green or tawny, terminated
by a short bifid beak: the angles of the fruit on its
upper part are rough with crystalline prickles, and the beak
is also rough, but the surface is not pubescent as described
by authors, and as figured by Schkuhr.
Two varieties of this species, according to Wahlenberg,
are found in Lapland; the one (his var. «.) shorter and
more rigid, with a smooth stem, and reddish brown fruit;
the other (his var. (3. inferalpina) longer, more slender, with
a rough stem, and oblong pale fruit; the terminal spike
being also frequently composed of barren flowers. The
Scottish specimens are in some respects intermediate ; the
fruit, in regard to form, agrees with «, but the stem is decidedly
rough ; the terminal spike, though mostly barren at
the base only, is occasionally so at the apex also. One of
these specimens too, has an additional fertile spike at some
distance from the rest, as is represented in Flora Danica,
and in one of the figures given by Schkuhr.—R. K. Gre-
ville, LL.D.
* Mr. D. Don assures us that his father was the first discoverer of this
Salix in Britain, and that it was in Glen Callader he found it.—J. D. C. S.