.Monograph of North American Carices. 339 



Hab. In wet meadows and swamps ; Canada to Georgia ; 

 not uncommon. Flowers in June. Plant dark green. 



Obs. According to Muhlenberg, this species sometimes oc- 

 curs with three fertile spikes. It is most commonly, in 

 the Northern States, found with two, and very often with 

 one. In Schkuhr's figure, which is excellent, it is repre- 

 sented with but one. The C. intumescens of Rudge, we 

 think, decidedly belongs to this species ; at least to the 

 C. folliculata of Schkuhr, Muhlenberg, Willdenow, and 

 most modern botanists. Rudge, however, who considered 

 his plant as a distinct species, has given a figure of C. fol- 

 liculata, taken from an American specimen, and the same 

 as one thus named in the Banksian Herbarium, that a com- 

 parison may be made between the two species. The latter 

 is quite different from our C. folliculata, and resembles C. 

 xanthophysa. 



72. Carex xanthopkysa, Wahlenberg. 



C. spicis fertilibus ternis quarternisve, ovatis, remotissimis 

 pedunculatis, paucifloris ; fructibus oblongo-conoideis, 

 subinflatis, striatis, adultis horizontahbus, acutis, bifidis, 

 gluma ovata acuminata longioribus. 



C. xanthophysa, Wahl. car. No. 73. Rees's Cyclop. No. 143. 

 Deivey, 1. c. vii. p. 274. 



C. folliculata, /3. xanthophysa, Muhl. gram. p. 244. 



Culm 2 — 4 feet high, erect, slender, obtusely triangular, smooth, leafy. 

 Leaves 3 — 4 lines broad, long, flat, very srrooth. Sterile spike lanceo- 

 late, nearly an inch long, subsessile, or with a peduncle about its own 

 length; glumes ovate, acuminate, carinate. Fertile spikes generally 4, 

 but often only 3, ovate, 8 — 10-flowered, when mature usually very re- 

 mote (the distance between each being from three to eight inches), ap- 

 pearing as if axillary ; the uppermost one subsessile, the rest on pedun- 

 cles, which are longest in the lowest spikes; bractece resembling the 

 leaves, the upper ones much exceeding the culm ; glumes ovate, or 

 ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, the apex terminating in a long filiform sca- 

 brous point, which is commonly shorter, but sometimes as long as the 



