424 
heretofore thrown loosely into Carex echinata. This, I hope, will 
be better than detailing a mere list of varieties which should have 
no coherence, and which should ‘differ from each other in the 
very terms by which the species is distinguished from its fellows. 
These plants may be outlined as follows: 
CAREX STERILIS, Willd. Sp. Pl. iv. 208 (1805). Sartwell Exsicc. 
No. 37. Boott. Ill. t. 146. 
C. scirpoides, Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. 19, fig. 180 (1806). | 
C. stellulata, vars. scirpoides and sterilis, Carey, Gray’s Man. 
1848, 544. 
C. echinata, var. microstachys, Boeck|. Linnza, xxxix. 125 (1875). 
C. echinata, var. microstachya, Boeck. Flora, 1875, 563. 
C. echinata, var. microcarpa, Bailey, Coulter’s Rocky Mt. Bot. 
395 (1885). 
Short, stiff and erect (usually not much exceeding a foot in 
height), the old leaves often persistent; head tawny or greenish-yel- 
low, short, composed of from three to five smalf loosish contiguous 
spikes, of which the uppermost is usually conspicuously attenuated 
at the base by the presence of staminate flowers; sometimes the 
terminal spike or even the whole head is entirely staminate ; peri- 
gynium thin and flat, conspicuously contracted into a slender 
beak which is nearly or quite as long as the body and spreading 
so as to give the spike an echinate appearance, sharp-edged and 
rough on the upper margins, variously nerved and very sharply 
toothed.—A common plant, growing in dryish bogs and swales 
throughout the Northern States east of the Mississippi; and I © 
also have it from Willow Springs, Arizona (Palmer, 548), and Mt. 
Adams, Oregon (Henderson). The plants of Willdenow and 
Schkuhr seem to have been variously understood by successive 
botanists, although the figures of both C. s¢erilis (fig. 146) and C. 
scirpoides (fig. 180) in Schkuhr’s “ Riedgraser’’ are unequivocal. 
I have also seen the originals of both plants. The dioeciousness 
of the species seem to be only an occasional state, and as I have 
not been able to discover other characters which uniformly ac- 
company it, I have thrown C. steri/is and C. scerpoides together. 
/ Var. EXCELSIOR. : 
C. stellulata and C. échinata, American authors. Sartwell, 
_ Exsicce. no. 35. 
