Abundance analysis of carbon has been performed in a sample of 80 late F and early G type dwarf stars in the metallicity range \mathrm { -1.06 \leq [ Fe / H ] \leq 0.26 } using the forbidden [ C i ] line at 8727 \mbox { { \AA } } .
This line is presumably less sensitive to temperature , atmospheric structure and departures from LTE than alternative carbon criteria .
We find that \mathrm { [ C / Fe ] } decreases slowly with increasing \mathrm { [ Fe / H ] } with an overall slope of -0.17 \pm 0.03 .
Our results are consistent with carbon enrichment by superwinds of metal-rich massive stars but inconsistent with a main origin of carbon in low-mass stars .
This follows in particular from a comparison between the relation of \mathrm { [ C / O ] } with metallicity for the Galactic stars and the corresponding relation observed for dwarf irregular galaxies .
The significance of intermediate-mass stars for the production of carbon in the Galaxy is still somewhat unclear .