﻿Mackenzie: Notes on Carex 619 



neither colored nor fibrillose at base; leaves with well-developed 

 blades about four to a fertile culm, on lower half, not bunched, 

 the sheaths and surfaces of blades (especially lower) sparsely 

 short-pubescent, the hyaline part of sheaths dark-tinged at edge, 

 the blades flat, 5-6 mm. wide, 2-4 dm. long (or on sterile culms 

 much longer), rough towards apex, the basal sheaths breaking and 

 slightly filamentose; staminate spikes two or three, separate from 

 each other and widely separate from the pistillate, the upper 

 peduncled, the others sessile, linear, 2.5-3.5 cm. long, 3 mm. wide, 

 the bract of lowest conspicuous, the scales oblanceolate, acute, 

 erose but not ciliate at apex, in age straw-colored and hyaline; pis- 

 tillate spikes two, widely separate, erect, sessile or short exsert- 

 peduncled, oblong-cylindric, 2-5 cm. long, 8-10 mm. wide, the 

 perigynia twenty-five to sixty, ascending in several to many nu.nks, 

 closely packed or the lower somewhat loosely arranged; bracts 

 leaf-like, the lower sheathing and exceeding inflorescence, the 

 upper smaller, nearly sheathless; scales ovate-lanceolate, acumi- 

 nate or cuspidate, green and strongly several-nerved in center, 

 with margins hyaline and usually with intermediate brownish 

 tinged zone, narrower and shorter than perigynia; perigynia 

 lanceolate, 5-6 mm. long, about 2 mm. wide, obscurely triangular, 

 little inflated, short pubescent, prominently about fifteen-nerved, 

 tapering into the bidentate beak 2 mm. long (including teeth), 

 the teeth short, less than i mm. long, slightly spreading; achenes 

 triangular, oblong-obovoid, 2.25 mm. long, 1.25 mm. wide, stipi- 

 tate; style slender, straight, not enlarged at base; stigmas three. 

 One of the most conspicuous features of the eastern Carex 

 trichocarpa Muhl., with which the present species has been con- 

 fused, is the bright purple coloring of the sheaths opposite the 

 blades, especially at the mouth. In addition the sheaths are 

 glabrous or at most hispidulous and do not normally break open 

 and become filamentose. In the present species the sheaths 

 entirely lack this purple coloring, are soft pubescent at least at 

 the mouth and do not readily break open. In Carex laeviconica 

 Dewey (a species with glabrous perigynium and impressed nerves) 

 the purple coloring is also lacking, but the glabrous sheaths quickly 

 break open and become filamentose. Carex atherodes Spreng. with 

 glabrous very deeply bifurcate perigynia has soft pubescent sheaths 

 which break open readily and are brownish or purple tinged. 



