OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 83 



at base (an inch long) or short and nearly globnlar, the upper one 

 or two staminate and short, the others all approximate or contiguous 

 and pistillate : bracts short and sheathless : perigynium elliptic-ovate, 

 prominently few-nerved, green and over-colored with black-purple 

 blotches, flat, very short-pointed, the orifice entire or nearly so, 

 broader and commonly a little longer than the black-purple and very 

 conspicuously white-nerved apiculate scale. Varies somewhat, espe- 

 cially in the length of the spikes and the coloring of the scale. The 

 aspect of the spikes is much like that of the spikes of 0. luzulcefolia 

 and G. frigida. The sheathless bracts at once distinguish it from 

 those species. The spikes in some of the immature forms of G. Mer- 

 tensii closely resemble those of G. invisa. — California : Summit 

 Camp, Kellogg, the type growing " in exceedingly tough and matted 

 clumps," Ebbett's Pass, Breioer 2084 and 2076, Big Trees, Hille- 

 brand, Lassen's Peak above snow, Brewer 2186 (a globular-spiked 

 form), Carson Pass, Brewer 2126 ; Selkirk Range, British Columbia, 

 Macowi. 



69. Carex laciniata, Boott, 111. 175, t. 594. 



(7. Wilkesii, Torr. Bot. Wilkes Exped. 477, t. 17. 

 Culm stout and very sharply angled, rough, two feet to three and 

 a half feet high : leaves stiff and carinate, pale, long : lower sheaths 

 fibrillose : bracts sheathless, leaf-like, the lowest very long: spikes 

 four to six, mostly long (two or three inches, rarely an inch), evenly 

 cylindrical and densely flowered, commonly short-peduncled or the 

 upper ones sessile, erect or somewhat cernuous (the lowest often long- 

 peduncled), yellowish or fuscous : perigynium oval or ovate or nearly 

 orbicular, more or less obscurely nerved, often minutely serrate on the 

 margins above, spreading, abruptly contracted into a short entire or 

 short-toothed beak, much broader and usually shorter than the purple 

 broadly white-nerved and hispid aristate scale. — In the coast ranges 

 and near the sea from Santa Barbara, California, to Rogue River at 

 Grant's Pass, Oregon, Howell. Perhaps also in Provo Canon, N. 

 Utah, Watson 1245. 



70. Carex ultra. 



G. hispida^ W. Boott, Bot. Gaz. ix. 89, in part. 

 Culm stout and rigid (two to three feet high), rather obtusely 

 3-angled, smooth : leaves a fourth inch or more wide, rigid, pale, as 

 long as the culm or longer, carinate, the margins serrate : lower bract 

 leafy, short-sheathed, the upper very abruptly pointed from a broad 

 and clasping base and shorter than the spike : spikes six to eight, all 



