496 
rough, bifid beak, strongly many-nerved, especially upon the back, 
squarrose or usually retrorse at maturity, shelling off readily when 
ripe.—Follows the coast from Newfoundland to Florida; not 
common. It is strange that none of the earlier students of the 
genus discovered this distinct plant. 
«CAREX INTERIOR. 
C. scirpoides, Sartwell, Exsicc. No. 36 (1848). C. stellulata, var. 
scirpotdes, Boott, Ill. t. 146** (1858). 
Very slender, but mostly strict (1-2 feet high), the thin wire- 
like culms usually longer than the narrow and rather soft grass- 
like leaves ; head composed of two to four little globular contiguous 
greenish-tawny spikes, of which the terminal one is usually 
slenderly contracted or stipe-like below and often oblique ; peri- 
gynium very small and plump, the margins very narrow or 
almost none, lightly many nerved on the back, but usually nerve- 
less or nearly so on the face, prominently corky at the base, the beak ~ 
and the teeth very short, spreading or reflexed at maturity and 
easily shelling off—Bogs and swamps, in the interior country, 
from Maine to Minnesota and Kansas. When this plant is once 
understood, I am sure that its identity cannot be mistaken. The 
utter confusion in which our Carex echinata has always lain, must 
_ be the only reason why the plant was not separated long ago. 
Boott knew that it is distinct from C. s¢erilis, but he made the mis- 
take of trying to identify it with Schkuhr’s C. scirpoides. But 
Schkuhr’s plant, as his plate plainly shows, was a short, stiff, 
fulvous plant with oblong spikes and long-beaked broad-winged 
perigynia. 
~ VAR. CAPILLACEA. 
Still more slender or even bristle-like in both culm and leaves, 
and habitually lower (sometimes 16 inches, but often only half as 
high); perigynium more cordate at the base and broader, strongly 
many-nerved upon both ssides.— Eastern Massachusetts, New 
Jersey and Central Pennsylvania. Perhaps specifically distinct 
from the last. My attention was first called to this plant some 
years ago by the late William Boott, who was once inclined, I 
think, to publish it. 
