Monograph of North American Carices. 337 



Obs. Our specimens from the White Hills, agree in most 

 respects with Schuhkr's description and figure, but there is 

 some doubt whether the plant be identical with the Euro- 

 pean C. nigra with which we cannot compare it, for want of 

 proper specimens. 



70. Carex lupulina, Muhlenberg. 



C spica sterili brevi-pedunculata (rarius geminata) ; ste- 

 rilibus tribus, subsessilibus, ovato-oblongis, erectis, approx- 

 imatis ; bracteis longlssimis, foliaceis ; fructibus ovatis, in- 

 fiatis, nervosis, longissime-rostratis, bicuspidatis, gluma 

 ovata multoties longioribus. 



C. lupulina, Willd. sp. pi. iv. p. 266. Schk. car. t. Ddd.. f. 

 123. & t. Iiii. f. 194. Purshfl. i. p. 41. Muhl. gram. p. 

 241. Elliott sk. ii. p. 544. 



C. lurida, Wahl. Rees's Cyclop. 145. 



Culm 2 — 3 feet high, very thick, triquetrous, leafy to the top, smooth. 

 Leaves longer than the culm, flat, one quarter of an inch broad. Sterile 

 spike usually solitary, rarely with a smaller sessile one at the base, ob- 

 scurely triangular, 2 — 3 inches long, bracteate ; glumes lanceolate, at- 

 tenuate into a long hispid very acute point. Fertile spikes usually 3 

 rarely 2, an inch and a half or two inches in length, and as thick as a 

 man's thumb, on short and included peduncles, crowded together in a 

 more or less erect position, each supported by a bractea, resembling in 

 appearance and length, the leaves ; glumes ovate, mucronate, less than 

 half the length of the fruit. Fruit ovate, remarkably ventricose or in- 

 flated, distictly nerved, with a very long acuminate rostrum, which is 

 bifid at the orifice. 



Hab. In wet meadows and swamps. Hudson's Bay to Geor- 

 gia ; common. Flowers in June. 



Obs. The fertile spikes in this Carex, are thicker than in 

 any other known species, and afford a very striking cha- 

 racter. 



ft ? polystachia : spicis fertilibus quinis, oblongo-cylindricis, 

 infima remota, longe-pedunculata. 



