MACKENZIE: NOTES ON CAREX 607 
scales. The leaf-blades also are noticeably wider. The present 
species seems to be confined to the Sierra Nevadas. 
SPECIMENS EXAMINED 
CALIFORNIA: In meadows along Truckee River, Placer County, 
Davy 3266, June 25-30, 1897 (type, in Herb. Cal., sheet 50814); 
Devil’s Basin, Eldorado County, 8,300 ft., Brainerd, July 19, 
1897 (Cal. in part); near Snowy Cascade, Eldorado County, 
6,500 ft., Brainerd rg1, July 13, 1897 (Brainerd). 
‘ Carex lancifructus sp. nov. 
Culms 2.5-4.5 dm. high, stiff, erect, triangular, smooth or 
nearly so, much exceeding leaves, aphyllopodic, brownish at base. 
Leaves with well-developed blades, two to four to a fertile culm, 
bunched above base, the blades flat or canaliculate, thick, 2—3.5 
mm. wide, mostly 7-12 cm. long, the sheaths tight, hyaline 
ventrally, little prolonged above blade, not readily rupturing. 
Head globose, 1.5-2 cm. long, and nearly as wide, the spikes six 
to ten, densely aggregated, gynaecandrous, oblong-ovoid, 6-9 
mm. long, 4 mm. wide, tapering at both ends, the staminate 
flowers inconspicuous, the perigynia eight to fifteen in several 
ranks, appressed, the beaks not spreading. Bracts scale-like. 
Scales lanceolate-ovate, acute, reddish brown with lighter mid- 
vein and narrowly hyaline margins, about width of, but shorter 
than perigynia. Perigynia lanceolate, thin plano-convex, straw- 
colored, 6 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, finely several to many nerved 
on both faces, contracted to a substipitate base, narrowly mar- 
gined (serrulate above) to base, tapering into beak one-third 
length of body, slender above, serrulate below, bidentate, light- 
reddish tipped, obliquely cut dorsally. Achenes lenticular, short- 
oblong, nearly 2 mm. long, I mm. wide, stipitate, apiculate, the 
slender style at length deciduous. Stigmas two. 
In Californian collections this plant has been most often 
confused with Carex specifica Bailey, a species differentiated from 
all others of the Ovales by the very membranaceous texture of the 
sheaths opposite the leaf-blades. This thin membranaceous easily 
ruptured portion is also strongly prolonged upward opposite the 
point of insertion of the blade. Carex lancifructus lacks these 
characters, and also differs in other respects, as shown in the key 
Published herewith. It is, in fact, most closely related to Carex 
ebenea Rydb., a species with blackish scales, although the difference 
in the color of the scales gives it a very different appearance. 
