— SP 
CAREX ey CYPERACEX 7138 
very short and scale-like or wanting: spikes 4-7, oblong, obtuse, narrowed 
and staminate at base, 4-6 lines long, about 3 lines thick, dark brown, 
shining, clustered but distinct in a terminal oblong head about an inch 
long: perigynia erect or ascending, ovate-lanceolate, 2 lines long, rather 
narrowly winged, the rough tapering 2-toothed beak nearly as long as the 
body, longer and broader than the lanceolate acute membranous scale. 
Oregon to Brit. Columbia and the Rocky Mountains. 
C. festiva Dewey Sill. Journ. xxix, 246. Cespitose: stems 6 inches to 
2 feet high, sharply angled: leaves 3-5, the upper longest, commonly shor- 
ter than the stem, 2-3 lines wide; heads dark ferruginous, 9-12 lines long, 
3-12 lines thick, of from 6-12or more nearly equal roundish or ovoid spikes, 
contiguous in an oblong, or crowded in a spherical or ovoid cluster, naked 
or subtended by'a scale-like or foliaceous bract that sometimes exceeds 
_ the stem; perigynia membranous, spreading or divergent, ovate, lanceo- 
late or narrowly elliptical, attenuate to a longer or shorter obliquely cut 
beak, narrowly winged, serrate above on the sharp margins, longer than 
the scale. In moist meadows, California to the Arctic regions and the 
Rocky Mountains. 
Var. gracilis Olney Proc. Am. Acad. viii, 407. Stems very slen- 
der, nodding at the top, 20-30 inches high: heads oblong, 12-18 lines long, 
of 3-6 roundish contiguous or approximate ferruginous spikes. Washing- 
ton to California. 
Var. stricta Bailey Mem. Torr. Bot. Clubi, 51. Stems rather stiff 
20-30 inches high: leaves stiff and the lower ones short: heads very dense 
globular or short-ovoid, light brown, 9-12 lines long: perigynia broad 
more or less nerved. In wet places, eastern Oregon to California. 
Var. pachystachya Bailey |. c. Stems 1-3 feet high, flat and weak, 
longer than the lax leaves: heads small, globular or oblong, dull .dark 
brown, the spikes oftén somewhat distant, very short: perigynia spreading, 
about equalling the ovate-lanceolate muticose brown scales. Oregon to 
Alaska and Montana. 
€. athrostachya Olney Proc. Am. Acad. viii, 393. Cespitose: stems 
acutely triangular, leafy, 8-24 inches high: leaves uarrow, shorter than 
the stem: bracts with an expanded strongly nerved hyaline-margined 
_ base, the lower 3-5 foliaceous, much exceeding the stem: heads globose, 
straw-color, of 5-20 densely crowded spikes or the lowest distant: gcales, 
membranous, pale ferruginous, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate: perigynia, 
ovate-lanceolate, attenuate to an elongated sharply bidentate beak, the 
winged margins serrate, about as long and broad asthe scale. In the 
mountains of California to Brit. Columbia and the Rocky Mountains, 
Orper CIX GRAMINEZ Juss. Gen. 28. (1789) — 
Annual or perennial Pants with usually hollow cylindrical, 
rarely flattened, jointed stems with closed nodes, two-ranked 
usually linear parallel-veined leaves with sheathing base, the, 
sheaths open on the side opposite the blade, and usually a sca- 
rious or cartilaginous ring called the ligule at the orifice of the 
sheath, and small: flowers in spikelets which are arranged in 
panicles, racemes or spikes, and which consist of a shortened 
axis called the rachella, and two or more chaff-like distichous 
- imbricated scales called glumes of which the first two are usu- 
; ally empty, in the axil of each of the others, except sometimes 
in the uppermost, is borne a flower and a two-nerved scale called 
