1903] Fernald, — New Kobresia in the Aroostook Valley 249 
younger material quickly showed that our plant had the flower- 
structure not of Carex, but of the Himalayan and high-northern 
genus Kobresia. 
In Carex the ovary is surrounded by an indehiscent closed pouch, 
the perigynium or utriculus. In Kobresia the ovary is wrapped about 
by a concave glume which is open on one side or with the margins 
merely united at the base. In Carex e/achycarpa the glume has the 
margins united at the very base, but the mature achene protrudes 
between the free margins of the glume, and appears strongly exserted. 
On this account it may easily be mistaken for the perigynium of a 
Carex and only close examination will reveal its true nature. There 
is no question, however, that Carex elachycarpa has its affinities with 
Kobresia, a genus which is little known in North America; but like 
many of the species referred to Kobresia Carex elachycarpa is a 
problematic plant. 
Besides the genus Carex the members of the Carzeae have been 
grouped by different modern authors into various ill-defined genera 
varying with the personal equation from two to five! while by early 
authors most of the better known species have been united with 
Carex. By Bentham & Hooker? four genera — Kobresia, Hemicarex, 
Schoenoxiphium, and Uncinia (besides Carex) were recognized, 
though Kobresia was placed in the Sclericae. In his monograph of 
Hemicarex and its allies, in 1883, Mr. C. B. Clarke recognized 3 the 
same four genera, although he pointed out that they are based on 
somewhat artificial characters and that the original “ Kodresta had the 
glume of the female flower concave, open or with the margins slightly 
connected near the base ; Carex had a complete utricle. But in the 
considerable number of species now known of Kobresia (including 
appeared as a “type ” of both Carex and Diemisa; C. crinitaasa “type” of both 
Diemisa and Neskiza; C. lacustris of both Carex and Anithista ; C. oligocarpa of 
Olotrema and Deweya “(or Meltrema if Dewey has a G[enus].)”; and C. pubes- 
cens of Enditria and Diemisa. The excessively artificial nature of Rafinesque’s 
genera is further shown when we find Carex flava, Oederi, and viridula (now often 
considered one species) as types of three * perfectly distinct ” genera. 
2 Gen. Pl. iii. 1071, 1072. 3 Journ. Linn. Soc. xx. 374. 
