46 Rhodora [February 



it is the plant of Greenland, Alaska, the Behring Sea region, and of 

 Spitzbergen and much of the Scandinavian and Finnish coast. In 

 fact, the narrow-fruited plant is apparently so local that in most mod- 

 ern accounts of Carex glareom it has received little or no recognition. 

 Thus in Flora Danica, in 1S65, the plant is described with perigynium 

 "oblongo-ovali"^ and in the beautiful colored plate the perigynium is 

 shown three-fifths as broad as long. In Boott's Illustrations, in 1807, 

 the plate^ agrees with that in Flora Danica in showing as C. glareosa 

 the plant with ovoid perigynia; and in Otsenfeld's Flora Arctica, in 

 1902, the plant is said to have the "utricles ovate," ^ and the figure 

 shows the utricle (perigynium) more than half as broad as long. 



When, however, we compare with this commoner tendency of Carex 

 glareosa the original description^ and figure* of the species, we find 

 that Wahlenberg's plant was not the form with ovoid perigynia so 

 generally treated as C. glareosa, but the narrow-fruited and ordinarily 

 less common plant. The original "capsulis oblongis acuminatis" 

 indicates this, and the evidence is strengthened by the colored plate 

 in Schkuhr, which shows a perigynium only one-third as broad as 

 long; and the fact that both the Swedish specimens in the Gray Her- 

 barium come from the Gulf of Bothnia, one from Bygdea in Wester- 

 botten and the other from the same region (the old district of Norrland) 

 is at least a good indication that Schkuhr's beautiful illustration repre- 

 sents a characteristic plant of that coast. 



From their manner of occurrence in eastern Canada, the two ex- 

 tremes seem clearly distinct, but since they apparently have no other 

 distinguishing characters than the shape of their perigynia, they should 

 be treated only as varieties of one species. These with their distribu- 

 tion as known to the writer may be summarized as follows: 



Carex glareosa Wahlenb. Plant densely caespitose, weak and 

 lax, the usually curved culms nearly filiform: leaves blue-green, flaccid, 

 0.5-1.5 mm. broad, plicate or involute: spikes 2 to 4, subapproximate, 

 appressed-ascending, obovoid; the lower 4 9 mm. long, 2.5 4 mm. 



' Fl. Dan. xiv. t. 2430 (1865). 



= noott, 111. iv. t. 494 (1867). 



■H:)stenfe]fl, Fl. Arct. 58, fifr. -'8 (1902). 



*" C.glarfosa: spicules ternis termiiiali basi mascula subconfertis oblongi.s, .sqiiamis 

 aeciuantihus, cap.sulis obloiisis acuminati.s convexissimo-planissubacutanguli.s nervosis; 

 folii.s angusti.ssimi.sintinionuiltuiii breviore, culmoflaccirio. C. glartosn miki Schkvh-r'; 

 Car. tab. Aaa. fig. 97. Hdh. in littoribus marinis glareosis Norvegiae septentrionalis, & 

 ad Siniim Bottniciim." — Wahlenb. Act Holm. xxiv. 146 (1803) 



"Schkuhr, ttiedgr. Nachtr. 24, t. .\aa, fig. 97 (1806). 



