PERNALD. — VARIATIONS OF BOREAL CARICES. 505 



conspicuous elongated stolons, while C. pilulifera (C. communis) is 

 caespitose, with short assurgent basal shoots. As may be implied, 

 varieties of C. pennsylvanica based upon color of the spikelets are 

 quite as inconstant as are those based upon the length or breadth of 

 the leaf, or other purely vegetative tendencies. In the character of its 

 perigynia, however, C. pennsylvanica presents three marked variations 

 which, from the material examined, seem to belong to well marked 

 geographic areas. These forms of the plant are : 



C. pennsylvanica, Lam. Diet. iii. 388. Strongly stoloniferous ; 

 the slightly caespitose small stools with reddish bases : leaves soft, com- 

 paratively narrow, 1.5 to 3.5 mm. broad, 0.5 to 5 dm. long, shorter 

 than, equalling, or often exceeding the slender culms : pistillate spike- 

 lets 1 to 4, globose or ovoid, loosely flowered, approximate or more or 

 less remote, the lowest rarely peduncled, often subtended by a narrow 

 leafy bract: scales usually maroon or red-tinged, rarely pale: perigynia 

 from subglobose to obovoid, puberulent, the short bifid beak one-fourth 

 to one-fifth as long as the body : staminate spikelet clavate, 1 to 2 cm. 

 long, sessile or short-stalked, usually reddish, rarely straw-colored. — In 

 dry or sandy soil from Cumberland Co., Maine, to Alberta, south to 

 Georgia and New Mexico. It is impossible to say from the original 

 description whether this or the following variety was intended by 

 Lamarck, but the commonest form of the species has been accepted 

 as typical since it was so considered by Boott, Kunze, and other classic 

 writers on the genus. The varieties and forms described by Peck 

 (46 Rep. N. Y. Mus. Nat. Hist. 51 ; 48 Rep. 76) appear to be vegeta- 

 tive states due largely to different degrees of light and exposure. 



Var. lucorum. Perigynium puberulent or glabrate, with a con- 

 spicuous slender beak nearly or quite as long as the body. — C. lucorum, 

 Willd. Enum. PL Berol. Suppl. 63; Kunze, Car. 153, t. 39; Boott, 

 111. ii. 98, t. 291, in part. — Maine to Michigan and "Arctic 

 America," and in the mountains to North Carolina. Maine, 

 Orono, May 31, 1890, June 4, 1898 (no. 2006) — M. L. Fernald; 

 Cambridge (F. S. Bunker); Glassface Mt., Rumford, July 13, 1890 

 (/. C. Parlin) : New Hampshire, Barrett Mt., New Ipswich, June 5, 

 1896 (M. L. Fernald) : Vermont, Chipman Hill, Middlebury, May 30, 

 1897, Burlington, June 16, 1898 {E. Brainerd) ; Pownal, May 29, 1898 

 {J. R. Churchill) : Massachusetts, Spot Pond, Stoneham, May 29, 

 1855, Maiden, June 11, 1861, Medford, May 21, 1865, Blue Hills, Milton, 

 June 3, 1870 (Wm. Boott); Purgatory Swamp, Dedham, May 26, 1878 

 {E. $ C. E. Faxon); Wilmington, May 14, 1899 (E. F. Williams): 



