18 Rhodora [JANUARY 
Brainerd, and in New Hampshire by the writer. It is a very hand- 
some and unique plant, not closely related to any described species. 
In its achene it is near the Scirpus Eriophorum group, but the bristles 
are much shorter and less crinkled, and inconspicuous in the fruiting 
plant, in this character approaching S. Zeafus. In its ascending 
stiffish rays and raylets, however, it is unlike any of those species. 
From the very dark color of its spikelets this plant may be called 
S. atratus. Culms tall, 1 to 1.75 m. high, rather slender (just 
below the involucre averaging 2.15 mm. in diameter) : leaves averaging 
7 (5 to 9) mm. wide: involucre black or black and chestnut-brown at 
base: inflorescence r to 2 dm. high, occasionally producing branches 
from lower sheaths ; umbel of many dichotomous rays of various lengths, 
2 to 4 of them more elongated and ascending, the others shorter, some- 
what divergent ; the raylets slender but stiff, scarcely drooping: spike- 
lets oblong-lanceolate, about 8 mm. long, sessile or subsessile in clusters 
of from 2 to 6: scales oblong-ovate, acute or obtusish, below pale or 
reddish-tinged, above blackish with a slight ferrugineous tinge : achene 
r mm. long, pale, 3-angled, obovate-oblong: bristles about 2.5 mm. 
long, curling when dry. — In a wet thicket, Alstead, NEw HAMPSHIRE, 
July 30, 1899 (M. L. Fernald, Herb. Alstead School Nat. Hist. no. 
3 ). Formerly collected at Sutton, VERMONT, Aug. 11, 1881 (Edwin 
Faxon), and at Ripton, VERMONT, July 17, 1898 (Ezra Brainerd). 
A common * bulrush" of northern New England and the region 
about the Great Lakes has been known in our floras as Scirpus sylva- 
ticus var. digynus, Bockeler, or S. microcarpus, Presl. The history of 
the treatment of this common northeastern plant and its immediate 
congeners is interesting. ; 
In 1828, Presl described his Scirpus microcarpus, a plant with the 
“habit of S. sy/vaficus," and with bifid style, the type specimens com- 
ing from Nootka Sound (west coast of Vancouver Island), and from 
Mulgrave (on Bering Straits). In 1836 Torrey, apparently unac- 
quainted with Presl’s species, described in his monograph? A. /en/- 
cularis from the “ North-west Coast of America, near Observatory 
Inlet, Dr. .Scouder," remarking that it is “ nearly related to S. sy/va reus 
but differs in its larger spikes, lenticular nut, diandrous flowers, and 
bifid style; that species [.S. sy/va#cus] having shorter spikes, a trian- 
gular nut, triandrous flowers, and a 3-cleft style." For S. sy/vaficus 
he cited three stations: ‘Canada, Michaux; Hudson's Bay Coun- 
try, Dr. Richardson; Island of Sitka, Russian America, Mertens,” 
1 Pres]. Reliq. Haenk. i. 195. ? Ann. N. Y. Lyc. Nat. Hist. iii. 328. 
