134 Rhodora [JuLy 
diagnosis of the species in 1825 and its actual publication in 1831, 
Ledebour published in his Flora Altaica, in 1829, E. Chamissonis, 
ascribing it to Meyer, citing Æ. intermedium of Chamisso's letter and 
giving almost Meyer's own description of the Unalaskan and Kamt- 
schatkan plant. Ledebour, however, in this first actual publication 
of Æ. Chamissonis, cited primarily plants from the Altai which subse- 
quently proved to be unlike the Chamisso plant. Thus arose a con- 
fusion which has always been troublesome. 
The exact identity of the Alati element of Eriophorum Chamissonis 
has been somewhat questionable. By Fries it was apparently taken 
to be Æ. Scheuchzeri (E. capitatum, Host)! but by Nylander in his 
Monograph the Altai element of Æ. Chamissonis is treated as Æ. 
vaginatum, var. humile? the name based upon Æ. humile, Turcz. 
Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. (1838) 103, which was a nomen nudum ; though 
by C. B. Clarkes Æ. vaginatum, var. humile, Nylander, is referred 
without question to the stoloniferous noncaespitose Æ. Scheuchzert. 
A sheet of the original Altai material sent from the Herbarium of 
the St. Petersburg Academy to the Gray Herbarium and labeled in 
the characteristic hand of C. A. Meyer “ Eriophorum Chamissonis 
C. A. M. 77. Ait” represents a densely caespitose non-stoloniferous 
plant closely related to Æ. vaginatum and quite inseparable from the 
original very clear figure of Æ. callitrix, Chamisso.* There can be 
no question, then, from this authentic material, of the identity of the 
Altai component of Æ. Chamissonis. 
That the name Æ. Chamissonis should be used for the stolonifer- 
ous non-caespitose plant of Kamtschatka and Unalaska, obviously 
the plant collected by Chamisso, which was clearly described and 
illustrated by Meyer and definitely included by Ledebour in his 
description, seems open to little question ; and in that sense, which 
was so clearly intended when the name was first put forward and 
which is indicated by the citation in the Flora Altaica of Æ. interme- 
1* Hoc, nempe £. Chamissonis C. A. Meyer, est omnino Æ. caprtatum Sueco- 
rum.” — Fries, Novit. Mant. iii. 170. í 
? E. vaginatum var. “humile Turcz (= E. Chamissonis C. A. M. fl. alt.) : culmis 
caespitosis, vaginis fibrillosis, capitulo subsphaerico, squamis ovato lanceolatis, 
cinereo-pellucidis. (Siberia altaica etc.)" — Nylander, Acta, Soc. Sc. Fenn. iii. 
(1852), according to Andersson, Bot. Not. (1857) 58. 
? Clarke in Hook., Fl. Brit. Ind. vi. 664 (1893). 
* Chamisso in C. A. Meyer, Mém. Sav. Etrang. Acad. St. Pétersb. i, 203, t. 2 
(1831). 
