OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 113 



Great Plains, British America, Macoun ; Carlton House, S. W. of 

 Hudson's Bay, Richardson. Very rare. Professor Tuckerman founded 

 the species upon specimens in the herbarium of Sir W. J. Hooker, 

 wliich were mixed with C. pallescens from New York (sent by Dr. 

 Torrey) and Carlton House. The same year Dr. Boott found a plant 

 in Herb. Prescott {Fielding) in England with the MS. name G. abhre- 

 viafa, and he published it, supposing that it came from the Altai. 

 In 1849 Professor Tuckerman found the same in Kunze's herbarium, 

 at Leipsic, labelled " 0. abbreviata, Schweinitz, no. 55," from Bethle- 

 hem, Penn. Prescott had evidently received his specimen from 

 Kunze. Schweinitz preserved no specimen in his own herbarium. 



Section VII. DACTYLOSTACHY^, Drejer, Symb. Car. 10. 

 {Brachyrhynchce, Bailey, Coulter's Man. 328.) Perigynium mostly 

 short and trigonous, with a short and straiglit or curved beak, green 

 or greenish, scarcely inflated ; scales of the pistillate spikes mostly 

 whitish, often small ; staminate spike mostly one ; pistillate spikes 

 short (seldom exceeding an inch), commonly rather loosely flowered 

 and slender ; bracts sheathing, the sheaths often conspicuous and 

 colored, — Undersized and lax or slender species inhabiting meadows 

 and copses. In a few of the less evolved species the perigynium is 

 hairy. In some of the Laxifloras and some other species the sheaths 

 are not conspicuous. 



A. OligocarptB, Carey, Gray's Man. 1848, 554. Slender and narrow-leaved 

 species with leafy bracts and inconspicuous green sheaths; perigynium 

 rounded on the angles, finely many-striate, often somewhat punctulate as in 

 C. grisea, to which the group forms a transition. 



156. Carex conoidea, Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. 67, f. 168. 

 C. granularioides, Schwein. An. Tab. 



C. tetanica., Schwein. & Torr. Monogr. 347. 

 G. Eiinoensis, Dewey, Sill. Journ. 2d ser. vi. 245. 

 Staminate spike rarely sessile. — Grassy places, Mass. to moun- 

 tains of North Carolina and westward to Ohio and Illinois. 



157. Cauex oligocarpa, Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. 58, f. 170. 

 G. subuniflora., Steud. Cyper. Plant, 234. 



G. oligocarpa, var. Sartwelliana, Dewey, Sill. Journ. 2d ser. v. 



176. 



Distinguished from G. grisea, var. angnstifolia, with which it is 



sometimes confounded, by its smaller perigynium, which is abruptly 



contracted at its middle into a conspicuous beak. I find that, in 



general, botanists have not a clear conception of this species. — Dry 



VOL. XXII. (n. 8. XIV.) 8 



