Sorth Amtrlcan Cyj^craceu:. 241 



we find only elev^en species (belonging to five genera) recorded 

 as natives of North America. In the Species Plantarum of 

 Willdenow, (vol. 1. part 1, 1797, and vol. 4, part 1, 1805, which 

 contain all the Cyperacete) we find 60 North American species, 

 42 of which belong to the genus Carex, and were mostly com- 

 municated to the author by Muhlenberg. The Flora Boreali- 

 Americana of Michaux, (1803) edited in part by the elder 

 Richard, contains only 54 species of Cyperaceae, which are, 

 however, very accurately described. The second volume of 

 Vahl's Enumeratio Plantarum, published in 1806, contains 

 much original information respecting these plants. He de- 

 scribed some important new'genera, and a great number of new 

 species, but his work contains comparatively few North Ame- 

 rican Cyperaceae. Persoon, in his Synopsis Plantarum 

 (1805 — 6,) added very little to our knowledge of the Cyperaceoe, 

 except the materials contributed by Richard. He described no 

 new N. American species. Pursh was evidently not familiar with 

 the plants of this order, although he records in his Flora 

 (1814) most of the species described by preceding writers. 

 His list comprises 119, only three or four of which are 

 new. Nuttall does not profess to have studied the Cypera- 

 cese with particular care, and in his Genera of North American 

 plants, (1818) he merely gives a catalogue of the species 

 enumerated in botanical works, amounting to 174. He, how- 

 ever, described two new species of Carex. The late Dr. Muh- 

 lenberg devoted much attention to the Cyperaceous plants and 

 Grasses of this country, and his posthumous work entitled De- 

 scriptio uberior Graminum et Plantarum calamariarum, &c. con- 

 tains faithful detailed desciiptions, without diagnostic charac- 

 ters, of 138 Cyperacese. The latest general enumeration of 

 this family is that of Sprengel, in his Systema Vegetabilium, 

 (vol. 1, 1825, and vol. 3, 1826,) where we find recorded 178 

 species as inhabiting North America. In my catalogue of the 

 genera of North American plants published in the appendix to 

 the American Edition of Lindley's Introduction to the Natural 

 System, (1831) the number of Cyperaceee is 247, or one fif- 



