wide, glaucous-green, papillose, marginally 2-ribbed and finely many-nerved, short- 

 stipitate, abruptly very minutely bidentate, purplish-tipped; achenes trigonous, 

 suborbicular-obovoid, 1.7 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, brownish, punctate. 



In bogs and swales, wet meadows, swampy woods and wet river bottoms, in 

 Okla. (Waterfall); Nfld. to Alas., s. to e. Va. and w. N.C., Ky., Ark., Okla., Colo, 

 and Calif. 



63. Carex bella Bailey. 



Cespitose from short-creeping fibrillose rootstocks; culms very slender, 5-9 

 dm. high, much-exceeding the leaves, phyllopodic, cinnamon-brown and more or 

 less strongly red-tinged at the base, the dried leaves of the previous year con- 

 spicuous; leaves usually 8 to 12 to a culm, scattered on the lower half, erect, flat, 

 3-6 mm. wide, long-attenuate; sheaths ventrally dull-reddish-brown-tinged or 

 dotted, the ligule as wide as long; spikes 3 or 4, the lower more or less drooping on 

 slender roughish peduncles 1.5-4 cm. long, the upper spikes erect, short-peduncled 

 or subsessile, the uppermost contiguous, the others more or less strongly separate, 

 gynecandrous, the terminal spike half-staminate, the lateral with only a few 

 staminate flowers, linear to oblong-linear, 12-25 mm. long, 4-5.5 mm. wide, 

 closely 15- to 30-flowered, the perigynia appressed, the terminal spike slightly 

 wider; lowest bract short (2.5 mm. long), leaflike, sheathing, exceeding the head; 

 upper bracts much-reduced; pistillate scales ovate, obtuse to acute, dark-reddish- 

 brown with lighter midrib usually conspicuous to the tip and shining white-hyaline 

 margins, nearly as wide as (but shorter than) the mature perigynia; perigynia 

 strongly flattened but swollen by the ripening achene, broadly oval to oblong-oval, 

 3-4 mm. long, 1.75-2 mm. wide, nerveless (except for the two marginal ribs) 

 or lightly 2- to 3-nerved, whitish-green, little or not at all red-tinged, membranace- 

 ous, smooth, puncticulate. rounded at the base, substipitate, rounded at the apex 

 and abruptly beaked, the beak 0.3 mm. long, apiculate, shallowly bidentate; 

 achenes obovoid or oblong-obovoid, about 2.2 mm. long and 1.7 mm. wide, 

 trigonous, yellowish-brown, granular, substipitate, strongly apiculate. 



Along streams and in moist or wet open woods and open parks in the spruce-fir 

 zone, and in wet alpine meadows in Ariz. (Apache. Navajo, Coconino and Graham 

 COS.); S.D. and Colo, to Ut., s. to N.M., Ariz, and N.L. 



64. Carex albonigra Mack. 



Cespitose from short slender rootstocks; culms 1-3 dm. high, stiff and erect, 

 phyllopodic, much-exceeding the leaves, red-tinged toward the base, the dried 

 leaves of the previous year conspicuous; leaves 6 to 12 to a culm, clustered at the 

 base, firm, flat with slightly revolute margins, 2.5-5 mm. wide, roughened toward 

 the strongly attenuate apex, the ligule as wide as long; spikes usually 3, the upper 

 approximate and sessile, the lowest usually slightly separate on an erect peduncle 

 shorter than the spike, the lateral pistillate, narrowly oblong, very closely 8- to 

 20-flowered, 8-10 mm. long, 4 mm. wide, the perigynia appressed, the terminal 

 gynecandrous. clavate at the base. 10-12 mm. long. 6 mm. wide, with 25 to 30 

 appressed perigynia; lowest bract leaflike, about equaling the inflorescence, brown- 

 ish-red-tinged and short-sheathing at the base, the others scalclike; scales broadly 

 ovate, obtuse or acutish. reddish-black, rough-papillose, conspicuously white- 

 hyaline at the apex and on the margins, the midrib usually more or less obsolete, 

 nearly equaling and generally wider than the perigynia; perigynia much-flattened, 

 broadly ovate or obovate. 3-3.5 mm. long. 2 mm. wide, nerveless (except for the 

 two marginal ribs) or nearly so, membranaceous, granular, reddish-black, rounded 

 at the base, substipitate. rounded at the apex and very abruptly contracted into 

 a minute apiculate. shallowly bidentate beak scarcely 0.5 mm. long; achenes 



540 



