\ 
1901] Fernald, — Northeastern Carices din i 
assume that its other parent is a plant with perigynia likewise small- 
er than in C. bullata. The only form of C. utriculata (as treated by 
Professor Bailey) which meets this demand is var. minor, Boott (C. 
rostrata, Stokes), which, as represented in the Gray Herbarium, 
seems to grow no further south than Connecticut. It hardly seems 
probable, then, that C. O/neyi, a plant occurring from eastern Massa- 
chusetts to Delaware, has any genetic affinity with C. rostrata (C. 
utriculata in part of Bailey). The species is, however, so close to C. 
bullata in its varying forms that it seems better treated merely as an 
extreme variation from that type. 
In the first four editions of Gray's Manual Carey recognized 
Carex vesicaria, L., of Europe as an American plant and the plate of 
that species in Boott's Illustrations was drawn from an Ohio speci- 
men. In the fifth edition of the Manual, however, Dewey's C. Vaseyi 
was taken up in its stead, a plant said to differ from the European 
C. vesicaria “in the more pointed scales and fewer-nerved perigynia 
tapering gradually into a longer beak.” In 1886, however, Pro- 
fessor Bailey united with Tuckerman's C. monile the C. Vaseyi of 
Dewey, and since then the American plant which was long treated 
either as C. vesicaria or C. Vaseyi has passed as identical with 
Tuckerman's species. That the American C. vesicaria (C. Vasey?) 
passes directly into C. monile there can be no doubt, but a study of 
European specimens from Francis Boott, Fries, Blytt, Hooker, and 
others shows no appreciable nor constant differences between the 
European and American plants. Furthermore good C. monile occurs 
in Transylvania at least, and a northern extreme of our American 
plant is well matched by C. vesicaria, var. distenta, Fries, of Scandi- 
navia. Carex Racana, Boott, a beautiful northern plant which ap- 
parently has been collected at only two stations, the original of 
Richardson near Methye Lake in Athabasca, and the shores of 
Lake St. John at the head of the Saguenay, is treated by Professor 
Bailey as a variety of C. monile. The typical C. Aaeaza is indeed 
very unlike the latter species, but Pres. Ezra Brainerd has collected 
at Lake St. John material which shows it to pass directly into typical 
C. vesicaria. 
Carex Tuckermani, C. bullata, C. retrorsa, and C. lurida are appar- 
ently distinctive American plants, and their treatment is not obscured, 
like that of some of the species here discussed, by the rather scat- 
tered descriptions of European forms. C. Zuckermani and C. bullata 
