FERNALD. — VARIATIONS OF BOREAL CARICES. 507 



The most marked tendencies of C. umbeUata are 



C. umbellata, Schkuhr, Riedgr. Nachtr. 75, t. "Www, fig. 171 (C. 

 umbeUata, var. vicina, Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci. xi. 317 & x. t. D, fig. 13). 

 Low and conspicuously caespitose, forming dense mats : leaves rather stiff, 

 0.5 to 4.5 dm. long, 1 to 4.5 mm. wide : culms mostly very short and 

 crowded at the base of the leaves, or some elongated, rarely even to 2 dm., 

 and bearing both staminate and pistillate, or staminate spikelets alone: 

 pistillate spikelets 1 to 4, ovoid or oblong, 0.5 to 1 cm. long, sessile or 

 on short or occasionally elongate-capillary peduncles: perigynia plump, 

 stipitate or substipitate, puberulent, 3.2 to 4.7 mm. long ; the slender 

 beak nearly or quite as long as the ellipsoid-ovoid to subglobose or pyri- 

 form body, and about equalled by the ovate acuminate green or purple- 

 tinged scale: staminate spikelets subsessile or peduncled, 6 to 12 mm. 

 long. — Dry sandy or rocky places, Prince Edward Island to 

 central Maine, west to Saskatchewan and British Columbia, 

 and south to New Jersey, District of Columbia, and Indian 

 Territory. 



Var. tonsa. Similar, but with the perigynia glabrous or merely 

 puberulent on the angles of the long beak. — Maine, Streaked Mt., 

 Hebron, June 2, 1897 (J. A. Allen) : Connecticut, rocky wooded 

 slope of Lantern Hill, North Stonington, May 30, 1901 (C. B. Graves). 

 A plant with identical glabrous perigynia is figured in Boott, 111. ii. 

 t. 293, from specimens collected at Methy Portage, Athabasca, by Sir 

 John Richardson. This and the New England plant represent a tend- 

 ency unusual in the Montanae. 



Var. brevirostris, Boott, 111. ii. 99, t. 294. Periirynia rather 

 smaller, the broad beak short, about one-third as long as the plump short- 

 hairy body. — The commonest form from Saskatchewan to Vancou- 

 ver Island, south in the mountains to California and New Mexico : 

 also Maine, Fort Kent, Ashland, Masardis, Island Falls and Foxcroft 

 (M. L. Fernald, nos. 2111, 2112, 2113, 2114, 2115); summit of Sargent 

 Mt., Mount Desert Island (E. fy C. E. Faxon) : New Hampshire, 

 Mt. Willard, and Bald Mt., Franconia (E. 3? C. E. Faxon). 



Carex vaginata and C. saltuensis. 



C. vaginata, Tausch, Flora (1821) 557 (C. vaginata, var. alto-caulis, 

 Dewey, Am. Jour. Sci., Ser. 2, xli. 227. C. saltuensis, Bailey, Mem. 

 Torr. CI. i. 7. C. altocaulis, Britton, in Britton & Brown, 111. Fl. i. 326, 

 fig. 773). The American plant was long considered by Francis Boott 



