76 Hhodora [April 



the Shickshock Mountains, in Gaspe Peninsula. It is quite like the 

 typical Carex irrigua except for its smaller stature and its tiny few- 

 flowered spikes. This j)lant was described by Michaux as a distinct 

 species, and a beautiful pencil-sketch in the Gray Herbarium, with 

 detailed drawings by Decaisne, of an original Michaux specimen, 

 leaves no question of the identity of the Shickshock plant. This 

 dwarf alpine or subalpine extreme has the dark scales and the glabrous 

 culms of typical C. irrigua, so that there is no doubt of its true affinity. 

 So far as known to the writer this few-fiowered plant is confined to the 

 cokh'r parts of eastern Canada; but since it was described as a species 

 by Michaux in 1803, long before the wider-distributed C. irrigua was 

 given specific recognition in 1X20, we are obliged, by the rulings of the 

 recent International Congress at Vienna, to retain for the species the 

 name given it by Michaux. 



The characteristics and nomenclature, then, of the three phases of 

 Carer paupcrru/a may be summarized as follows. 



Cauex I'AtiPEiutTLA Michx. Culms 1-2.5 dm. high, glabrous: 

 pistdlate spikes few-flowered, ovoid, 4 8 mm. long: scales castaneous 

 throughout. — Fl. ii. 172 (1803). - QtiEHEC, Lake .Alistassini {Mi- 

 chaux); alpine bogs, Mt. Albert, (iasp^ Co., August 12, 1905 {Cnllin.s 

 & Feruahi, no. 48). 



Var. irrigua (Wahbenberg) comb. nov. Plant 1 4.5 (very rarely 

 becoming 5-8) dm. high; the culm usually glabrous: pistillate spikes 

 cylindric, in maturity 1-1.0 cm. long: scales castaneous throughout. — 

 C. limom, f3, irrigua Wahl. Act. Holm. (1803) 102; Dewey, Sill. 

 Jour. X. 42 (1820); Torr. Ann. Pyc. Nat. Hist. N. Y. iii. 425 (1830). 

 C. limom y, irrigafa Wahl. Fl. Lapp. 243, t. 15, fig. 2 (1812). C. 

 lenticularis Dewey, Sill. .lour. vii. 273 (1824), not Michx. C. irrigua 

 Smith in Hoppe, Caric. Germ. 72 (1820); Hoppe & Sturm, Caric. 

 (ierm. t. 38 (1829); Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. viii. 17, t. 238, fig. 594 (1840); 

 Carey in (iray, Mari. 549 (1848); Anders. Cyp. Scand. 30, t. 7, fig. 72 

 (1849); Liebm. & Lange, Fl. Dan. Suppl. 13, t. 10() (1805). C. 

 magcllanica Boott, 111. li. 80, t. 219, 220 (1800); Dewey, Am. Jour. 

 Sci. xxxix. ser. 2, 70 (1805); Bailey, Proc. Am. Acad. xxii. 94 (1887) 

 and in Gray, Man. ed. 0, 002 (1890); Britton in Britton & Brown, 

 111. Fl. i. 313 (1896), in i)art; not Lam.— Boreal and alpine regions 

 of Europe. In America from the subarctic regions south in cold bogs 

 and on mountains to Nova Scotia, northern Worcester Co., Ma.ssa- 

 CHUSETTS, Pocono Mt., Pennsylvania, Pic River, Ontario, and 



