48 Rhodora [Marcu 
are tolerably constant in their tendencies, but C. retrorsa and C. 
lurida are excessively variable and present many puzzling forms. 
The treatment of them here adopted is essentially that already pro- 
posed by Professor Bailey. 
In the preparation of the following synopsis the writer has been 
greatly assisted by Pres. Ezra Brainerd, who has kindly loaned his 
northern material of the group, and by Professor John Macoun, who 
has allowed the use of the extensive collections of the Geological 
Survey Department of Canada. These two collections have satis- 
factorily supplemented the representation in the Gray Herbarium 
and the herbarium of the New England Botanical Club. 
SYNOPSIS OF SPECIES AND VARIETIES. 
* Perigynium not bladder-like nor conspicuously inflated; the beak 
with an entire or short-toothed orifice. 
+ Perigynium nerved. 
++ Spikes few-flowered, loose: mature perigynium rather firm, 5 or 6 
mm. long. 
C. OLIGOSPERMA, Michx. Slender and tall (2.5 dm. or less high), 
with involute leaves: staminate spike usually r; pistillate spikes r 
or 2, very rarely 3, at most 1.5 cm. long: the shining conic-ovoid 
perigynium ascending, nearly twice as long as the broad blunt purple- 
tinged scale. — Fl. ii. 174; Carey in Gray, Man. 567; Boott, Ill. i. 
25,t. 63; Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. xxii. 64, & Mem. Torr. Club, i. 
64. C. Okesiana, Dewey, Sill. Jour. xiv. 351. C. Despreauxii, Steud. 
Syn. Pl. Cyp. 237 (acc. to Bailey, l. c. 69). — Bogs and wet shores, 
Labrador and Newfoundland to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and the 
Saskatchewan. 
++ ++ Spikes dense: perigynium smaller. 
— Leaves flat. 
a. Pistillate spike purplish: perigynium globose-ovoid, abruptly short- 
beaked, membranaceous, squarrose-spreading. 
C. COMPACTA, R. Br. Rather stout, 2 to 4 dm. high: staminate 
spike r (rarely 2), short-peduncled; pistillate spikes 1 or 2, very 
dense, sessile, erect, 1 to 3 cm. long, 7 to 9 mm. thick. — R. Br. in 
Ross, Voy. App. cxliii (nomen nudum), & in Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. 
xxvii. 237, t. U, fig. 63; Boott, Ill. iv. 156, t. 502; Bailey, Proc. 
Am. Acad. xxii. 66, in part, & Mem. Torr. Club, i. 39. C. mem- 
branacea, Hook. in Parry, 2nd Voy. App. 406; Dewey, Am. Jour. 
Sci. xxix, 247, t. X, fig. 73. C. saxatilis, var. compacta, Dewey, Am. 
Jour. Sci. xi. 310. C. membranopacta, Bailey, Bull. Torr. Club. xx. 
