FERNALD. — CARICES OP SECTION HYPARRHENAE. 457 



"No. 2. I am quite unable to distinguish this plant from the original 

 of C. sterilis, Willd. It has the same broad-ovate, short-acuminate or 

 short-beaked perigyuium, and the same achenial characters, that is, the 

 achene is rather conspicuously narrowed below. The characters of the 

 inflorescence are the same, except as to color. The Willdenow plant is 

 more brownish : this, however, may be due, at least to a certain extent, 

 to age." 



From Willdenow's original description, from Schkuhr's description 

 and fi'nire, and from Dr. Greenman's examination and drawings of the 

 Willdenow plant, there seems no question, then, that Carex atlantica, 

 Bailey, is the true C. sterilis, Willd. 



Carex scirpoides, Schkuhr. The characters of this species, likewise, 

 are sufficiently stated in the discussion of Schkuhr's and Willdenow's 

 characterizations. Material from the Schkuhr herbarium received through 

 Professor Mez is identical with camera-drawings made by Dr. Green- 

 man from Willdenow's plant. These accurately agree, also, with 

 Schkuhr's fig. 180. This species, was, furthermore, correctly inter- 

 preted by Sartwell, Carey, and Boott, and it is well represented as C. 

 stellulata, var. scirpoides in Boott's Illustrations, t. 146 .** Sartwell's 

 No. 36 and Boott's plate are the only exact citations given by Professor 

 Bailey for his C. interior, and his description of the so-called new species 

 accords well with those of Willdenow and of Schkuhr. In distinguishing 

 C. interior from C. scirpoides, Bailey says that the former has " greenish- 

 tawny spikes," while the latter is "fulvous;" and he furthermore de- 

 scribes Schkuhr's C. scirpoides, "as the plate plainly shows," with 

 "long-beaked broad-winged perigynia." How such a statement and 

 such conclusions could have been made is very puzzling. There can 

 be no question, however, that the figure of Schkuhr's C. scirpoides as 

 interpreted by Dewey, Schweinitz, Torrey, Sartwell, Carey, Francis 

 Boott, Holm, and other students of the genus, is the same as Boott's 

 table 146** upon which, in part, C. interior was founded. 



The name Carex scirpoides, Schkuhr, so long attached to this plant, 

 was published in 1805, but it cannot, unfortunately, be retained for the 

 species, since in 1803 Michaux published C. scirpoidea, the well known 

 dioecious plant of extreme boreal and alpine regions. The next clearly 

 defined name for the plant seems to be C. interior, although, as originally 

 intended by its author, that name was supposed to apply to a species 

 very distinct from C. scirpoides. Tuckerman , it is true, published in his 

 Enumeratio Methodica the name C. stellulata, var. scirpina, citing C. 

 scirpoides, Schkuhr, as a synonym. On a preceding page, however. 



