342 Monograph of North American Carices. 



Culm 4 — 10 inches high, subterete, sulcate, filiform, smooth. Leaves grow- 

 ing- in a thick tuft at the root, subulate, much shorter than the culm, 

 pale green ; sheath at the base of the culm, bearing a short ovate hya- 

 line bractea. Sterile spike on a short peduncle, or almost sessile, pro- 

 ceeding from the same sheath with the uppermost fertile spike, and often 

 lower than this, lanceolate, straw-coloured ; glumes ovate, obtuse. Fer- 

 tile spikes 2 or 3, ovate, scarcely an eighth of an inch long, the upper 

 two rising to nearly the same level ; the third spike when present, a 

 half an inch or more distant, on a slender peduncle enclosed by the hya- 

 line sheath ; glumes broad-ovate, obtuse, or slightly mucronate, one 

 third shorter than the fruit. Fruit ovate and obovate, with a very short 

 rostrum, smooth, obliquely truncate, black when mature. 



Hab. At the foot of limestone hills, Pownal, Vermont. 

 Prof. Dewey and Mr. Davis. On rocks about the Falls of 

 Niagara. Prof. Dewey. In Watertown, New- York. Dr. 

 Crawe. Flowers in June. 



Obs. This delicate and handsome plant appears to differ 

 from the European C. alba, only in being smaller in all its 

 parts. The white hyaline sheaths are a very striking cha- 

 racter. 



76. Carex plantaginea, Lamarck. 



C. spicis fructiferis subquaternis, vix exserte vel incluse pe~ 

 dunculatis, laxifloris ; fructibus oblongo-cuneiformibus, tri- 

 quetris, apice recurvatis ; culmo basi vaginato ; vaginis 

 omnibus subaphyllis, (coloratis) ; foliis latissimis. 



C. plantaginea, Lam. em. iii. p. 398 M'ch. fl. ii. p. 173. 

 Ree's cyclop. No. 135. Purshjl. i. p. 42. Dewey 1. c. vii. 

 p. 273. 



C. latifolia, Wahl. act. Holm. 1800. p. 156. 



Culm 8 - 12 inches high, almost perfectly leafless, triquetrous, smooth, 

 somewhat flexuous at the joints, slender, subdecumbent when old; the 

 lower part clothed with imbricated purple aphyllous sheaths. Leaves 

 all radical, shorter than the culm, spreading from half an inch to an inch 

 in breadth, with usually 3 strong longitudinal nerves, smooth and flat, 

 somewhat glaucous. Sterile spike on a peduncle an inch or more in 

 Tr-n-rth. oblone;: glumes dark brovrn ovate, acuminate. Fertile spike? 



