450 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



thicker perigynia it is more nearly related to C. straminea and its 

 allies. So, likewise, C. cristata, Schwein., is reinstated as a species, 

 since its tolerably constant habit and its shorter, firmer perigynia place 

 it as near C. straminea as to C. tribuloides. 



The diverse plants which have been treated by various authors, now 

 as distinct species, now as forms of Carex straminea, fall into groups 

 which are, in the main, fairly free from complexity. The attempt to 

 separate these forms by color-characters has naturally led to much con- 

 fusion, for plants which in bright sunlight have a strongly marked 

 ferrugineous tendency, in shade are often quite green. The shape, size, 

 nerving, and texture of the perigynia, however, show that almost with- 

 out exception the species proposed by Willdenow, Schkuhr, Torrey, 

 Schweinitz, Dewey, and other early students of the group were based on 

 permanent characters. To treat all these well marked and constant 

 forms as varieties of one species is adding confusion rather than clearness 

 to our interpretation of the genus, especially when several of them are 

 as closely related to other well recognized species. 



The identity of Willdenow's Carex straminea was settled by Professor 

 Bailey 1 in 1889, and a recent examination of Willdenow's material by 

 Dr. J. M. Greenman has verified Professor Bailey's conclusions. C. 

 albolutescens, Schweinitz, is now well understood, as are likewise C. 

 mirabilis, Dewey, C. tenera, Dewey, C. Bichiellii, Brittou (C. straminea, 

 var. Crawei, Boott), and C. alata, Torrey. But C.festucacea, Schkuhr, 

 C. straminea, var. brevior, Dewey, and C. foenea, var. /3, Boott, seem 

 to have been less clearly understood. 



Schkuhr's Carex festucacea, according to the original description, was 

 a plant with about eight spikelets subapproximate or in a loosely 

 cyliudric spike, and the species is so represented in Schkuhr's figure. It 

 is likewise well represented by Dr. Boott, who apparently had a clear 

 conception of the species, in his table 386. Schkuhr's C. straminea, 

 which we now know to be different from Willdenow's plant of that name, 

 was an extreme form of C. festucacea with fewer spikelets, and until 

 recently it passed as the type of the species ; i. e., C. straminea (typica) 

 of Boott and others. This plant, however, was called by Dewey C. 

 straminea, var. brevior, and under that name it has been treated by 

 Professor Bailey. He includes with it, though, the C. festucacea of 

 Schkuhr, a plant which, though closely related, is of rather marked 

 appearance and of more limited range. More recently Dr. Britton, in 



i Mem. Torr. CI.. I. 21. 



