﻿Mackenzie: Notes on Carex 605 



beak is much less than half as long as the body. The suborbicular 

 achenes are twice as large as the broadly oval achenes of genuine 

 Carex festucacea. This plant should be known as Carex brevior 

 (Dewey) Mackenzie,* comb. nov. 



Detailed descriptions of each of these three species and lists of 

 the specimens examined follow. 



Carex straminea Willd.; Schk. Riedgr. 49. pi. G, f. 34. 1801 

 Densely cespitose, the culms slender, 2.5-9 dm. high, exceeding 

 leaves, sharply triangular and roughened on the angles im- 

 mediately beneath the head, the lower leaves much reduced. 

 Leaves with well-developed blades three to five to a fertile culm, 

 on the lower third but much separated, the blades flat, erect- 

 ascending, attenuate, 2-3 mm. wide, usually 5-15 cm. long, the 

 margins rough ; the sheaths loose, green-striate ventrally nearly to 

 apex; sterile culm leaves more numerous. Spikes three to ten, ag- 

 gregated, approximate or more or less separate in a stiff head 2.5-6 

 cm. long, the spikes 6-10 mm. long, 4.5-6 mm. wide, ovoid, 

 rounded at apex, the terminal long clavate and staminate at base, 

 the lateral rounded or short clavate and sparingly staminate at 

 base with fifteen to thirty appressed-ascending perigynia with erect 

 or ascending or somewhat spreading beaks; bracts scale-like or the 

 lowest often cuspidate-prolonged, 5-20 mm. long. Scales ovate, 

 acute or short acuminate, white-hyaline with green strip on each 

 side of mid-vein slightly light brownish tinged, narrower and 

 shorter than perigynia. Perigynia green or greenish, the body 

 obovate, thin except where distended by achene, wing-margined 

 to base, 1.5-2 mm. broad, 3.5 mm. long, many-nerved on outer 

 face, lightly about five-nerved on inner face over achene, with an 

 additional nerve in either margin, rounded at base, abruptly 

 contracted into a beak half the length of body, the beak obliquely 

 cut dorsally, flat and strongly serrulate, as is upper third of peri- 

 gynium body. Achenes lenticular, brownish, oval-oblong, sub- 

 stipitate, 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm, wide, slightly apiculate, and 

 continuous with slender flexuous style; stigmas two. 



The more strongly developed specimens of this species bear a 

 strong resemblance to Carex alata Torr. They are to be dis- 

 tinguished by the smaller perigynia which are more strongly 

 nerved ventrally and only obliquely cut at the apex, as also by 

 the less strongly stipitate achenes. 



