[ 2516 ]
C A R EX rariflora.
I.oose-Jlowered Alpine Car ex.
MONOECIA Triandria.
Gen. Char. Male, Catkin imbricated. Cal. of 1
scale. Cor. none. Female Catkin imbricated.
Cal. of 1 scale. Cor. none. Stigmas 2 or 3 .
Seed clothed with a swelling tunic.
Spec. Char. Sheaths extremely short. Female
spikes nearly linear, pendulous; their scales
loosely imbricated. Fruit obovate, with three
blunt angles and depressed sides. Root creeping.
Syn. Carex limosa y , rariflora. Wahlenb. in Stock.
Trans, f o r 1 8 0 3 . l6 2 . Willd. Sp. PI. v. 4 . 2<J4 .
DISCOVERED in 1807, by Mr. G. Don, on a mountain at
the head of a glen called the Dell, among the mountains of Clova,
Angusshire, near the limits of perpetual snow. Its acute discoverer
wished therefore to have named the species C. nivalis;
but we think it incumbent on us to retain the appellation by
which this plant is marked, very unaccountably indeed, as a variety
of C. limosa, t. 2043, in the above works. We have authentic
specimens from Mr. Wahlenberg, precisely like Mr. Don’s.
Surely few Carices can be more distinct than this and limosa.
They agree indeed in the creeping root, short sheaths of the
bracteas, and drooping female spikes; but the present is in every
part much smaller, and the shape of the female spikes,, composed
of a few remarkably lax, or distant, scales, blacker than in limosa,
marks a sufficient difference. The fruit is obovate, not broad and
compressed.