OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 99 



112. Carex polystachta, Wahl. Kongl. Acad. Handl. xxiv. 149. 

 0. cladostachya, Wright & Sauvalle, Fl. Cubana, 189. 



Differs from G. cladostachya in its strict culm, much stifFer and 

 nearly smooth leaves, more numerous spikes which are fulvous in 

 color and more or less crowded and appressed, and in its longer beaked 

 perigynium. — Cuba, from two stations, Wright 3421 ; " In summis 

 montibus Jamaicae," Swartz. 



113. Carex acrolepis, Liebmann, Mex. Halv. 83. 



" Culm a foot high, slender, triquetrous, smooth : leaves shorter 

 than the culm, narrowly linear and grass-like, margins and keel sca- 

 brous, the sheaths short, fuscous, fibrillose in front : spikes androgynous, 

 disposed in terminal and axillary long-pedunclod panicles, staminate 

 at top, shortly pedicelled, furnished at the base with a setaceous and 

 scabrous spathella about four lines long : bracts (of the panicles) very 

 long, overtopping the panicles, the sheaths rough in front and the 

 orifice scariose and cut : lower peduncles three inches long, rough, the 

 upper shorter, bearing about three spikes : scales lanceolate and long- 

 mucronate, nerved, the mucro rough, green on the back, dull straw- 

 colored on the sides : perigynium longer than the scale, fusiform, 

 trigonous, nerved and glabrous, green, the beak bifid : achenium 

 elliptical, triquetrous, stipitate, sides plane and dark, the margins 

 yellowish." — Candelaria, Costa Rica, January, Oersted. 



114. Carex Oerstedii, Liebmann, 1. c. 84. 



" Culm two to two and a half feet high, slender and flexuose, tri- 

 quetrous, smooth, leafy : leaves shorter than the culm, narrowly 

 linear, nerved, keel and margins scabrous : panicles distant, axillary 

 and terminal, long-peduncled : bracts surpassing the culm, often eight 

 to nine inches apart, the sheaths glabrous, membranaceous, and scari- 

 ose orifice auricled : peduncles one or two from each axil, the lowest 

 six inches long, the upper shorter, all compressed, smooth below 

 and scabrous above, 4-5-spiked at the top: spikes subsessile, two- 

 ranked, androgynous with the staminate flowers above, six to eisht 

 inches long, the spathella setaceous and scabrous, shorter than the 

 spike : staminate scales short, mucronate, imbricated : pistillate scales 

 broadly lanceolate, spreading, long-mucronate, mauy-nerved, reddish- 

 striped and straw-colored, puberulent, carinate, the mucro and keel 

 scabrous: perigynium longer than the scale, elliptical, triquetrous, 

 fuscous, nerved, the beak angled and sparsely ciliolate, smooth below, 

 orifice bifid : achenium stipitate, elliptical, triquetrous, sides plane and 

 dull black, very slightly granular." — Named for Anders S. Oersted, 



