248 MACKENZIE: NoTEs ON CAREX 
other words, there has evidently been some confusion of specimens 
in this case as in others, and one is not justified in accepting the 
sheet in the Willdenow herbarium as containing the type of Carex 
virescens unless the specimen there accords with the description. 
Turning to the description it will certainly be admitted that a 
short-spiked form does not answer to a description which calls as 
in the present case for a linear spike, and, this being so, our only safe 
course is to study the original description and ignore the plant in 
the Willdenow herbarium. 
Like a number of other Carices described by Muhlenberg, 
Carex virescens was published first in Willdenow’s Species Planta- 
rum (4: 251) in 1805, and secondly in Schkuhr’s Riedgraser 
Nachtr. (45) in 1806. The descriptions are practically identical, 
but the second is accompanied by a plate (mm. f. 747). The 
description reads : 
“C. spica androgyna lineari pedunculata inferne mascula, 
femineis subapproximatis binis subpedunculatis linearibus, fructibus 
globoso-triquetris obtusis pubescentibus. . . . Capsula[e] maturae 
virides subnervosae pubescentes.”’ 
The plate shows a young plant with the uppermost stem-leaf 
inserted much below the spikes and a broad (comparatively) lower 
bract somewhat exceeding the spikes. A more mature specimen 
is also shown with the same kind of lower bract and sérougly cos- 
fate perigynia round-tapering at apex. The spikes in both cases 
are shown to be linear-cylindric. Both these figures seem to me 
to represent the larger of the two plants under discussion. There 
are also figured separately obovoid perigynia without ribs on one- 
half but ribbed on the other half. The draftsman apparently here 
attempted to give a side view so as to show the nerveless inner 
surface of the perigynia and the nerved outer surface at the same 
time. The result is an uncharacteristic drawing, but there is 
nothing about it inconsistent with the same reference as the rest of 
the plate. 
The plate and the description calling for a linear spike both 
answer then to our larger plant, and I feel justified in following 
Professor Fernald in so treating it. I do not, however, think that 
the identity of the smaller plant should be obscured by treating it 
as a variety. Accordingly, I have here used Professor Fernald’s 
