478 Mackenzie: Notes on Carex 



bluntisb angles, exceeding the leaves, fibrillose at base. Leaves 

 with well-developed blades about seven to fifteen to a fertile culm, 

 the blades 2.5-6 mm. wide with strongly developed midrib and 

 revolute margins, strongly scabrous, usually 2-4 dm. long, atten- 

 uate ; spikes in erect peduncled panicles, the lower panicle 

 solitary, on a peduncle 6-12 cm. long, the upper panicles in pairs, 

 shorter-peduncled, the panicle bracts leaflet-like, strongly sheath- 

 ing ; panicles ovoid, 2.5-5 ^^* ^^ng, 1.5-2 cm.' wide, containing 

 8-15 sessile and often somewhat compound widely spreading 

 spikes ; spikes 5-10 mm, long with 2-5 pistillate flowers in the 

 middle and about as many staminate flowers at apex, the lower 

 scales usually empty ; spathella prominent ; bracts small, awn- 

 pointed, 2-5 mm. long ; scales obovate, obtuse or short-awned, 

 brown with lighter center and hyaline margins, the pistillate half 

 the length of the perigynia ; perigynia 4.5-5 mm. long, 1.9 mm. 

 wide, the body obovoid, sharply triangular, bright green, rather 

 faintly nerved, tapering at base, abruptly contracted at apex into 

 a somewhat roughened and bent beak, 1.5 mm. long, with blden- 

 tate apex ; achenes triangular, 3 mm. long, ovoid, short-stipitate, 

 closely invested by perigynia ; stigmas three. 



Type, C. G. Pringle's 4.8^0^ collected August 27, 1894, Sierra 

 de San Felipe, Oaxaca, Mexico, 6,000-7,000 feet, distributed as 

 Carex polystachya Swartz, and presei-ved in the herbarium of 

 Columbia University. 



This species is closely related to Carex cladostachya Wahl., but 

 has been readily distinguished from the rather numerous specimens 

 of that species which I have examined, by the few-flowered spikes 

 and the noticeably larger perigynia. Carex polystachya Swartz \s^ in 

 all probability nothing more than Carex cladostachya. The differ- 

 ences attempted to be drawn between these two plants do not hold 

 good in any very large series of specimens, and Dr. N. L. Britton, 

 who has had Jamaica (from which both species came) thoroughly 

 explored, is strongly of the opinion that they are the same, 



Carex fuscotincta sp. nov. 



Culms tall, stiff and erect, but rather slender, 5-8 dm. high, 

 from thick elongated rootstocks, phyllopodic, smooth or nearly so 

 on the bluntish angles, exceeding the leaves, somewhat fibrillose 

 at base. Leaves with well-developed blades some 7-15 to a fertile 

 culm, the blades 2.5-4 in«i- wide, flat with slightly revolute 

 margins, strongly roughened, usually 1.5-3 dm. long, attenuate; 

 spikes in erect peduncled panicles, the lower panicle solitary on a 



