CYPERACEAE (SEDGE FAMILY) 103 



longer than the leaves: spikes 10-25, globose or ovoid, compactly flowered, 

 ferruginous or straw-colored, usually all simple, the middle or terminal ones 

 staminate, loosely aggregated (the two or three lowest sometimes distinct) 

 into a cylindrical or oblong thick and heavy head 3-7 cm. long, which is 

 sometimes subtended by a bract of its own length: perigynium tawny, ovate, 

 prominently nerved, scarcely wing-margined, rough above, shortly beaked 

 (the orifice nearly entire), bearing a conspicuous fissure on the outer side, 

 commonly longer than the acute brown scale. C. disticha. Dry places; Utah, 

 Colorado, and northward and eastward. 



57. Carex Gayana Desv. Fl. Chili 205. 1853. Creeping: culms slender, 

 3-6 dm. high, longer than the leaves: spikes 4-15, globose or loosely ovoid, 

 dark brown, simple, nearly dioecious (rarely staminate at the top), rather 

 loosely aggregated into a small ovoid head 15-25 mm. long: perigynium 

 triangular-obovoid, about as wide as long (sometimes wider), gibbous below, 

 rough on the top, squarely contracted into a very short entire beak, obscurely 

 nerved below, brown and shining at maturity, shorter than the acute chaffy 

 scale. Wyoming and southward. 



- Spikes mostly nearly linear or narrowly oblong, chaffy: the scales long, 

 attenuated or awned: heads pale. 



58. Carex Douglasii Boott, Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 213. 1840. Creeping: 

 culm 1-3 dm. high, obtusely angled and mostly smooth, longer or shorter than 

 the long-pointed leaves: spikes usually many, simple or compound, pale and 

 chaffy, dioecious or nearly so, densely aggregated into a conspicuous and 

 heavy head 3-5 cm. long and often 2-3 cm. wide, which is sometimes sub- 

 tended by a setaceous bract of nearly its own length: perigynium ovate- 

 lanceolate, nerved, produced into a slender toothed beak, much shorter and 

 entirely concealed by the long, acute, scarious scale: stamens and stigmas long 

 and conspicuous. Common especially in Wyoming; Colorado, Utah, and 

 southward. 



13. Spikes staminate at the base (No. 62 sometimes has spikes staminate at 

 the top). HYPARRHENAE Anderss. 



* Spikes silvery-green or tawny when mature, distinct, mostly small; perigyn- 

 ium not wing-margined nor conspicuously broadened, mostly nearly flat on 

 the inner surface. ELONGATAE Tuckm. 



-- Perigynium nearly linear or ovate-lanceolate, in loose spikes. 



59. Carex Deweyana Schw. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 1: 65. 1824. Caespitose: 

 culms weak and slender, 3-8 dm. high, longer than the flaccid and flat leaves: 

 spikes 3-6, silvery-green, erect, 4-8-flowered, the two or three upper ones ap- 

 proximate, the lower more or less remote, the lowest subtended by a setaceous 

 bract of more than its own length, all uniformly staminate at the base: peri- 

 gynium oblong-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, very thin in texture, spongy 

 at the base, nerveless or very nearly so, nearly erect, prolonged into a long and 

 rough toothed beak, little longer than the very acute or awned white scale. 

 Moist copses throughout. 



i i Perigynium ovate or nearly so, not sharp-margined, firm in texture, erect 

 in closely flowered and rounded spikes. 



60. Carex canescens L. Sp. PI. 974. 1753. Culms slender, 3-6 dm. high 

 often weak, rough, about the length or a little longer than the leaves: spikes 

 3-10, pale or glaucous, scattered or remote (the upper usually approximate), 

 small and densely 10-20-flowered, obovoid or ellipsoid, mostly conspicuously 

 narrowed at the base with staminate flowers: perigynium small, short-ovate 

 or oval, whitish and granular, mostly obscurely nerved, abruptly and minutely 

 beaked, rather longer than the acutish scale. C. elongata in part; the vars. 

 alpicola Wahl. and dubia Bailey seem to run into the species by numerous 

 gradations. [C. brunnescens (Pers.) Poir is C. canescens alpicola Wahl.] 

 Widely distributed; throughout our range at various elevations. 



