70 Rhodora [April 



This species sliows much variation. Specimens from New Eng- 

 land and the Great Lakes have smaller culms, spikelets darker in 

 color, often longer ; the scales more viscid (in many western speci- 

 mens scales are but very slightly viscid), and umbels less congested 

 than usual in western specimens, though the latter vary from dense, 

 globular heads to open umbels with rays 5 cm. long. Plants having 

 this open umbel can be determined by the achene and scale. 



SciRPus heterochaetus, n. sp. 



Culms erect, 1-2 mm. high, 4-10 mm. in diameter at base, terete, 

 usually hard, light green, smooth, minutely striate, leafless, or basal 

 sheaths produced into acuminate blades 2-15 cm. long and 3-5 mm. 

 wide ; the sheaths with hyaline borders lacerate and slightly fibril- 

 lose : inflorescence an open, suberect compound umbel of 9-17 

 spikelets, subtended by a single erect attenuate terete bract, chan- 

 neled only at the base (3.5-7 cm. long) ; rays 1-6 cm. long, very 

 slender, plano-convex, smooth or slightly scabrous on the margins ; 

 bractlets vaginate, pale brown to wine color, long acuminate, the 

 hyaline margin lacerate-fimbriate, smooth except the scabrous 

 excurrent tip of the midrib; secondary rays .5-1.5 cm.: spikelets 

 solitary, ovoid-oblong, acute or subacute, 3-4 by 8-10 mm., reddish 

 brown: scales )^ longer than the achenes, ovate-oblong, subacute, 

 deeply emarginate, thickly spotted with wine-color toward the sum- 

 mit, pale below, the hyaline margins erose, glabrous except the 

 prominently excurrent scabrous, slender tip of the midrib : style 

 3-cleft to below the middle : bristles 2-4 (usually 2) slender, fragile, 

 unequal, shorter than the achene (usually not over i the length of 

 the achene), dark red, retrorsely barbed or nearly smooth : achene 

 fuscous 1. 7-1. 8 by 3.6-3 mm-, obovate, abruptly mucronate, in 

 section triangular, the ventral side plane or slightly concave, the 

 dorsal angle rounded, hexagonally reticulate under a lens. 



Type : " Brewer &> C/iukcring, swamps, Havana, N. Y., June 26, 

 1858," specimen in the National Herbarium, no. 27.519. 



This is the form referred to (fide note on above specimen) by Dr. 

 Gray in Manual. Fifth Ed. p. 563: " A slender variety with narrower 

 heads, very smooth scales and shorter or fragile bristles, was spar- 

 ingly collected by Rev. J. W. Chickering at Havana, N. Y." 



Other specimens examined: — Vermont, Milton, July 25, 1893 

 {Grouf) : New York, Havana {Chickering in (iray Herb.) : Illinois, 

 Athens, July, 1869 {E. Hall in Herb. Field Columbian Mus. no. 

 35,203); Minnesota Fort Snelling. July 24, 1888, — a robust speci- 

 men with immature spikelets {R[earns)\ Minnesota or South Dakota 

 [no locality given] July 24, 1839 {Gcyer, Nicollet's Northwestern 

 Exped.): Nebraska (" P:x Father Wibbc^'): Oregon, Swan Lake, 

 Klamath Co. July 14, 1895 {Applcgate 759): Idaho, valley of Lake 



