614 MACKENZIE: Notes ON CAREX 
v wie 
Carex gracilior sp. nov. 
Cespitose, but with slender short-creeping black fibrillose 
rootstocks, the clumps medium-sized, the culms slender, 3-6 dm. 
high, exceeding leaves, smooth or nearly so on angles, aphyllopodic, 
brownish at base. Leaves with well-developed blades three to 
five to a fertile culm, on lower third, but not bunched, the blades 
flat, 1-2 mm. wide, 5-15 cm. long. Inflorescence consisting of 
three to six small few-flowered spikes aggregated (or lower one or 
two a little separate) into a narrow or oblong head 12-20 mm. long, 
5-12 mm. wide, the spikes sessile, bluntish, suborbicular, 5-8 mm. 
long, 4-6 mm. wide, the basal staminate flowers few and incon- 
spicuous, the perigynia four to twelve to.a spike, ascending to 
rather strongly spreading-ascending with conspicuous beaks; 
lower bract present, setaceous and from shorter than to (rarely) 
exceeding the head; the upper wanting or very much reduced. 
Scales ovate, obtusish or acutish, chestnut brown with lighter 
colored midrib and narrow hyaline margins, about width of, but 
shorter than perigynia. Perigynia plano-convex, thick, narrowly 
winged, 3.5-4.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, lance-ovate, dull green, 
the body faintly nerved dorsally, nerveless ventrally or nearly so, 
round tapering at base, tapering somewhat abruptly into the 
slender beak, one half length of body of perigynia, chestnut-brown 
and then hyaline at apex, obliquely cut dorsally at mouth, smooth 
towards apex, serrulate below. Achenes lenticular, obovate, 2? 
mm. long, 1.2 mm. wide, apiculate, the slender style at length 
deciduous; stigmas two. 
Bolander’s No. 3822, collected April, 1864, at Cloverdale, 
Sonoma County, and: mounted on a sheet in the Leland Stanford 
University herbarium is taken as the type. This is a plant of 
the Coast Ranges and is found from San Francisco Bay, north- 
ward at least to Mendocino County. 
SPECIMENS EXAMINED 
CALIFORNIA: Mark West’s Creek, Bigelow 19 (Whipple Expe- 
dition), April 30, 1854 (C.); same station, Bolander 3814, April, 
1864 (L.S., Cal.); Petaluma, Bolander 4635, Spring, 1866 (Cal.); 
Berkeley, Mrs. Walker 18, Spring, 1906 (Cal.); Sonoma, R. Kuhn, 
April 18, 1913 (K.M.); Cloverdale, Sonoma County, Bolander 
3822, 3822-A, April, 1864, (L.S.); Mendocino County, Bolander 
4635, April 12, 1866 (L.S.); Bolander & Keller, 1872 (C.)- 
