452 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



ley. ^ But his own C.foenea, var. perplexa has proved very puzzliiio- to 

 students of the group. In the original description of this variety at 

 least two distinct species are referred to, while the words " head erect or 

 nearly so " have proved misleading for a plant with more flexuous spikes 

 (heads) than ordinarily occur in the type of the species. 



Dr. J. M. Greenman has kindly compared with Willdenow's original 

 material various plants passing in America as Carex foenea, and he has 

 furnished the writer with detailed camera-drawiuss from Willdenow's 

 material. From these comparisons there seems no doubt that the origi- 

 nal O. foenea was, as Professor Bailey has already stated, the smallest 

 form of the species, with 4 to 9 spikelets in a suberect linear-c^lindric 

 spike. This is the plant subsequently described by Tuckerman as 

 C argyrantha and figured by Boott in his table 382, fig. 2. 



Professor Bailey's Oarex foenea, var. perplexa was based on Boott's 

 table 380 and a portion of table 382 (presumably fig. 1), upon Olney's 

 C albohUescens (E^xsicc. fasc. 1, no. 8), as well as his G. ulbolutescens, 

 var. sparsijlora (fasc. V. no. 11). Now, the perigynia of good Carex 

 foenea are strongly and conspicuously nerved on both faces, and the 

 spikelets are pale green or silvery brown. The first part of var. pei-- 

 plexa (Boott's table 380) shows a perigyniuin quite nerveless or only 

 faintly short-nerved on the inner face ; the second component (table 

 382, fig. 1) is the characteristic large form of C.foenea with crowded 

 spikes of large spikelets; the third (C. albolutescens of Olney) is, as 

 represented by two sheets in the Gray Herbarium, a form between the 

 large state and the small typical G. foenea ; while the fourth component 

 (C. albolutescens^ var. sparsiflora, Olney — at least the New Brunswick 

 plant) in habit as well as in the nerveless inner face of the perigynium 

 closely matches the first cited plate (Boott's table 380). From the fact 

 that yar. perplexa was proposed as a variety of G. foenea it is probable 

 that its author had in mind the coarse form represented by Boott's table 

 382, fig. 1, and in the present treatment of the group it has seemed 

 advisable to retain that name for the large plant. 



Olney's Carex albolutescens, var. sparsiflora is represented in the 

 Olney Herbarium by two different plants. One of these, from Oregon, 

 is the dark-spiked form of C. praticola which has been described as C. 

 pratensis, var. furva, Bailey. The other, from Kent Co., New Bruns- 

 wick, the northeastern plant which is identified with Boott's table 380, is 

 much more closely related to G. adusta, Boott, than to C. foenea, Willd. 



1 Mem. Torr. CI., I. 24. 



