FERNALD. VARIATIONS OF BOREAL CARICES. 495 



leaves : the globose or ovoid spikelets 4 to 8 mm. long : perigynia 2.5 to 

 3.5 mm. long, 1.2 to 1.7 mm. broad, brown tinged, mostly exceeding the 

 ovate blunt scales. — Ehrh. in L. f. Suppl. 414; Wahlenb. Kongl. Vet. 

 Acad. Handl. xxiv. 146, & Fl. Lapp. 230; Schkuhr, Riedgr. 51, t. li, 

 fig. 97; Hoppe & Sturm, Car. Germ. t. 6; Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 214; 

 Reichenb. Ic. Fl. Germ. viii. t. 204, fig. 542 ; Anders. Gyp. Scand. 62, 

 t. 4, fig. 30 ; Boott, 111. iv. 152, t. 489; Fl. Dan. Suppl. t. 31 ; Bailey, 

 Proc. Am. Acad. xxii. 145; Macoun, 1. c. 127; Britton, 1. c. 352, fig. 

 852. C. leporina, Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nacbt. t. FiF, fig. 129, not L. C. 

 Carlfotiia, Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. xxvii. 238, t. U. fig. 64 ; Torr. 1. c. 

 393. C. triarina, Dewey, 1. c. xxix. 247, t. X, fig. 74; Torr. 1. c. — 

 Bogs and mossy places, arctic and alpine Europe. Very locally in 

 America : examined from the following stations : — Keewatin, York 

 Factory (Sir John Richardson) : Saskatchewan, Norway House and 

 Carlton House {Richardson) : Alberta, Lake Louise (Ezra Brai7ierd, 

 no. 172) : British Columbia, Glacier (Ezra Brainerd) ; Kicking 

 Horse Lake (/. Macoun, hb. Geol. Surv. Can. nos. 28; 49; 30,410; 

 30,411; 30,412). July, Aug. 



n. — THE VARIATIONS OF SOME BOREAL CARICES. 



Carex aquatilis. 



C. AQUATILIS, "Wahlenb., Kongl. Acad. Handl. xxiv. 165. — Plants 3 to 

 9 dm. high ; leaves 4 to 7 mm. broad : spikelets ^ slender ; the pistillate 1.5 

 to 5.5 cm. long, 3 to 4.5 mm. thick, the lowermost often long-attenuated 

 and remotely flowered at base : scales dark, subacute, hardly equal- 

 ling or barely exceeding the perigynia. — Northern Europe, Green- 

 land. In North America from the Shickshock Mts., Gaspe, Quebec, 



1 The inflorescences of Carex are simple or compound spikes, racemes, or pani- 

 cles ; and, since in other genera of Cyperaceae, as Ci/perus and Scirpus, the ultimate 

 spicate divisions of the inflorescence are called spikelets, that term is here adopted, 

 for the sake of uniformity and clearness, for these ultimate spicate divisions of 

 the inflorescence of Carex. The species in wliich there is a solitary simple in- 

 florescence (or true spike), as C. gynocrates and C. exilis, are few in comparison 

 with those in which the inflorescence has more than one such division. From the 

 occurrence in those plants, however, of occasional secondary divisions of the in- 

 florescence, the term spikelet seems not inappropriate to the normal inflorescence 

 of such species. 



