1922] Wiegand,—Carex laxiflora and its Relatives 195 
The distinction between C. laxiflora, var. blanda and var. varians, 
as these two varieties are treated in Gray's Man. ed. 7, appears to 
be artificial. All conditions of prominence of the staminate spike 
are found, also all degrees of aggregation of the upper pistillate spikes, 
without reference to geographical range, and occasionally in the 
same colony. 
3. C. LAXIFLORA Lam. Encyc. iii. 392 (1789). C. anceps, var, 
angustifolia Dewey in Wood's Class Book 423 (1845), mainly C. 
laxiflora, var. angustifolia Dewey in Wood's Class Book later eds. 
C. gracilescens Steud. Cyp. Plant. 226 (1855). C. laxiflora 8 intermedia 
(b), in part, Boott, Ill. Carex 37 (1858), not Pl. 91. fig. 1. C. laxiflora 
e blanda (c) gracillima Boott, |. c. 38 (1858), and PI. 91. fig. 2. C. 
laxiflora, var. intermedia of Bailey, Proc. Amer. Acad. xxii. 115 
(1886). C. laxiflora, var. gracillima Robinson & Fernald in Gray’s 
Man. ed. 7, 242, inc. fig. 483 (1908). C. laxiflora of Bailey, Mem. Torr. 
Bot. Club. i. 31 (1889), also Gray’s Man. ed. 6, and of Mackenzie in 
Britton & Brown's Ill. Fl. ed. 2, chiefly.—Plants slender, green, 
yellowish green when dry; culms 0.5-1.2 (1.5) mm. in diam. the 
angles more or less serrulate-scabrous; basal sheaths purple, often 
weathering away; broadest basal leaves 3-8 mm. wide; broadest 
cauline 1.8-5 mm. wide; sheaths close, the angles more or less erose, 
wavy; bracts rarely exceeding the culms; spikes scattered, the stami- 
nate usually peduncled, conspicuous; scales purplish or brownish, 
rarely pale; anthers 2.0-3.0 mm. long when dry, 3.0-3.5 mm. long 
when fresh; pistillate spikes usually all scattered, often slender- 
peduncled, dense or somewhat lax, 7-25 mm. long, the rhachis 
usually granulose; scales oblong-ovate, acute or truncate, mucronate 
or short-awned, usually tinged with brown; perigynia usually crowded, 
divaricate, 2.5-4.1 mm. long, cellular, pale or glaucous-green, strongly 
27-35-nerved, short-stipitate; apex tapering but scarcely beaked, 
usually strongly bent or recurved.—Low ground mostly in alluvial 
soil: Medford (Boott) and Cambridge (Fernald), Massachusetts, and 
from Vermont and Connecticut to the mountains of Virginia, west- 
ward through Ontario and Kentucky to Illinois Wisconsin and Missis- 
sippi. 
This species is very closely related to C. blanda, but the purple 
sheaths, granulose narrow rhachis, more scattered spikes, narrower 
green leaves, often more curved and paler perigynia, more generally 
cuspidate and more tawny scales, and shorter bracts usually are 
sufficient to distinguish it readily though the individual characters 
fluctuate to a considerable extent. The plant apparently inhabits 
alluvial ground which is much more moist than that in which C. blanda 
grows. The soil preferred by C. blanda seems to be a rich loam, 
