422 
know it only from Ohio and Illinois, but it must have a wider 
range. 
C. straminea, var. CRAWEI, Boott, Ill. 121, t. 388 (1862). 
C. straminea, vat. Meadit, Boott, |. c. t. 389. 
Robust forms with very large heads and mostly round, loose 
spikes, with very broad, long-pointed perigynia, which easily 
shell off when ripe. From Connecticut and New Jersey to Illi- 
nois; evidently more common westward. 
CAREX ALBOLUTESCENS, Schw. Ann. N. Y. Lyc. i. 66 (1824). 
C. straminea, var. fenea, Torr. Monogr. 395 (1836), not C. 
Jenea, Willd. (1809). 
C. straminea, var. B Gay, Ann. Sci. Nat. 2d ser. x. 362 (1838). 
C. leporina, var. bracteata, Liebm. Mex. Halv. 264 (1850). 
C. straminea, var. chlorostachys, Boeckl. Linnza, xxxix. 118 
(1875). 
’ Var. CUMULATA (Bailey). 
C. alata, var. pulchra, Olney (mostly), Exsicc. fasc. ii. No. 23 
(1871). 
C. straminea, var. cumulata, Bailey, Mem. Torr. Bot. Club, i. 
23 (1889). 
CAREX ECHINATA, AND ITS AMERICAN CONGENERS: 
The American plants which have been variously known as 
Carex echinata, Carex stellulata, Carex sterilis and Carex scirpoides 
have been the subject of more neglect than any other American 
carex, perhaps more, even, than any other of the older species. of 
our flowering plants. This lack of attention is due both to the 
polymorphous character of the species and to the uncertainty of a 
specific identification with the European plant. Every collector 
must have noticed that all printed descriptions of the species are 
singularly unsatisfactory, and that widely different forms are 
thrown loosely under one name. The species is not an attractive 
_ one at best. I have long felt that the-plant has never been un- 
derstood, and for two or three years I have made a special effort 
to collect material for study. The arrangement of this material, 
which I now propose, seems to solve the difficulties which have 
always attached to the species. The solution of the perplexities  _ 
_ turns upon two questions: UE hy eat ‘ta 
. 
