Carex. CYPERACE^E. 241 



two male or sometimes female at top or at the bottom, the rest female or with male 

 flowers at top ; scales dark purple, oblong or ovate or lanceolate, obtuse or acute : 

 perigynium ferruginous or pale below, round-obovate, abruptly ending in a very 

 short entire beak, or ovate and acute, curving outward, smooth or few-toothed on the 

 upper margins, compressed, nerveless, longer or shorter than the scales : nutlet 

 obovate, lenticular: stigmas 2 or 3. 111. iv. 167, t. 568-575. C. rigida, Good. 

 Linn. Trans, ii. 193, t. 22; Eeichenb. 1. c., t. 225. C. saxatilis, Fl. Dan. t. 159. 



In the Sierra Nevada, from the Yosemite Valley to Mount Shasta, mostly alpine at 8,000 to 

 12,000 feet altitude. A very variable species and widely distributed, ranging in America, in sev- 

 eral forms, from Greenland and Behring Straits to the northern Atlantic States, Colorado and 

 westward, and also found in Chili, and in the Old World frequent in the alpine or colder regions 

 of Europe, Asia and Australia. The var. hyperborca, Boott (to which are referred C. hyperborea, 

 Drej., C. limuln, Fries, C. Bigelovii, Ton 1 ., and C. IVashuiytoniann, Dew.), differs chiefly in its 

 usually slightly nerved perigynium and longer and looser spikes. 



41. C. decidua, Boott. Stem 1 to 1| feet high or more : leaves 1 to 3 lines broad, 

 shorter than the stem : bracts without sheaths, the lower exceeding the stem ; auri- 

 cles purple, roundish or clasping : spikes dark purple, 4 to 6, oblong or cylindrical, 

 the uppermost male at least at base or at both ends, 12 to 14 lines long and 2 or 3 

 thick, the rest female and solitary or in clusters of two or three, 6 to 18 lines long 

 or more by 2 to 4 thick ; scales dark purple, pale in the middle, oblong-oval, the 

 male obtuse or the midnerve slightly projecting in the upper flowers, the lower 

 female sometimes lanceolate and mucronulate : perigynium ferruginous, oval, rostel- 

 late with an entire beak, stipitate, strongly nerved, smooth or dentate on the upper 

 margins, papillose, deciduous, longer or shorter than the scale : nutlet oval, lenticu- 

 lar, punctate. Linn. Trans, xx. 119, and 111. i. 63, t. 170. 



Western coast of Patagonia and the Falkland Islands ; inserted on the authority of Dr. Boott, 

 who cites under this species specimens collected in California by Thurber and in Oregon by 

 Douglas, Hinds, and Nuttall. 



42. C. nudata. Stem 12 to 16 inches high, slender, sharply angled, scabrous, 

 clothed at base with dark brown leafless sheaths, the inner side breaking up in re- 

 ticulate fibres : leaves 1 to 2| lines broad, setaceously pointed, shorter than the 

 stem : bracts without sheaths, the lowest rarely equalling the stem, the rest shorter 

 than the spike ; auricles purple, oblong : spikes 4 or 5, cylindrical, the uppermost 

 male (or female at base), 6 to 1 2 lines long and 1 to 1 thick, single or rarely with 

 a second smaller one at its base, the others female, 6 "to 18 lines long and 1 or 2 

 thick, the highest close to the male and sessile, the rest contiguous on short pedun- 

 cles or rarely the lowest radical on a peduncle a foot long ; scales dark purple, ob- 

 long, obtuse, or the lower female lanceolate and acute : perigynium purple above, 

 straw-colored below, elliptical, attenuate to an entire cylindrical beak, compressed 

 and empty above, plano-convex below, delicately nerved, punctate, resinously dotted, 

 very deciduous, longer or shorter than the scale : nutlet (young) loosely invested by 

 the perigynium and half its length, orbicular. 



In the Coast Ranges from San Francisco Bay to Ukiah, Bolander, n. 2299, 3836, 4638, 6202. 



43. C. aquatilis, Wahl. Stoloniferous : stem stout, obtusely angled, smooth, 

 spongy at base, 2 or 3 feet high : leaves pale, 1 \ to 3 lines broad, often exceeding 

 the stem : bracts foliaceous, clasping, without sheaths, the lower much longer than 

 the stem; auricles small, roundish, separate or connate : spike 6 to 12 inches long, 

 of from 4 to 8 cylindrical or clavate spikelets, the male 1 to 4, approximate, an inch 

 or two long, the lowest often bracted, the female 2 to 5, densely flowered, obtuse or 

 the upper one male at top, \\ to 3 inches long and 2 or 3 lines thick, remote, ses- 

 sile or the lower peduncled and loosely flowered at base ; scales purple or chestnut- 

 colored, pale in the middle and on the margins, oblong or lanceolate, obtuse or 

 acute or the lower rarely 3-nerved and cuspidate : perigynium pale, obovate, round 

 or elliptical, short-beaked with entire orifice, stipitate, biconvex, nerveless or 1-2- 

 nerved on the outer side, resinously dotted, broader than the scale : nutlet round or 



