1906] Fernakl, Variations of Carex pauperciila 73 



Stachi/ff palustris Iv. Found growing near the edge of a field in 

 moist soil, by ^Ir. Billings, July 7, 1901. 



Scutellaria churchilliana Fernald. Wet ground along the Pen- 

 obscot River below the waterworks in 1904. Also found along river 

 in town of Veazie in 1905. 



Scrophularia leporella Bicknell. Observed along the water front 

 in Bangor the past three years, and found in Brewer by Mr. Billings 

 in 1905. 



Crepis virens agrestis Koch, ^lany plants growing on a wharf 

 below "High Head," July 16, 1904. Thinking it merely a form of 

 the common fall dandelion we took only a few specimens. 



Bangor, Maine. 



THE VARIATIONS OF CAREX PAUPERCULA. 

 M. L. Fernald. 



In 1803 Michaux described from Lake Mistassini at the head of 

 Rupert River a small Carex which, from its tiny few-flowered spikes, 

 he named C. paupercula} By subsequent authors the Michaux plant 

 has been treated without question as a depauperate phase of the polar 

 C irrigua of J. E. Smith ^ (1826) which was based upon C. liinosa, 

 var. irrigua originally published by Wahlenberg^ in 1803 from Scan- 

 dinavia; while by many recent authors both C. paupercula and C. 

 irrigua have been treated as identical with the antipodal C. magel- 

 lanica, described by Lamarck^ in 1789 from the Straits of Magellan. 



A recent study of these three plants has convinced the writer that 

 in our ordinary inter])retation of them we have drifted far from the 

 original conceptions of Lamarck, Michaux, and Wahlenberg; and 

 that in order to emphasize certain points which have been too generally 

 ignored it is necessary to review the characteristics of the plants. 

 Since the boreal plant described as Care.v irrigua is of the broadest 

 distribution and consequently the best known of the three it may 

 appropriately receive the first consideration. 



As already stated Carcx irrigua has by many students been regariled 



1 Michx. Fl. ii. 172 (1803). 'W^ilil., Act. Holm. (1803) 162. 



2 Smith in Hoppe, Caric. Germ. 72 (1826). M.:iin. Encyc. ill. 385 (1789). 



