24 Description of three New Car ices. 



short peduncles nearly included within the small sheathing bracts, 

 or the lower partly exserted; and by the triquetrous fruit ; nu- 

 merous, leafless, diffuse, and at length prostrate culms : and broad 



radical leaves. In the varying forms of C. anceps, the perigyninm 



is constantly more obtuse on the angles, and more obovate in 

 outline ; and the bracts are always long and leafy, the upper ex- 

 ceeding the culm. In C. digitalis, Willd., and the closely allied 

 C. retrocurva, the leaves and bracts are also long and grassy, com- 

 monly exceeding the culms, and the lower spikes are generally 

 on much-exserted, filiform, more or less pendulous peduncles. 

 The perigynium of the present species, the smallest of the group 

 here indicated, closely resembles that of C. digitalis. 



' Carex sychnocephala : spicis androgynis inferne masculis cre- 

 bris arete capitato-aggregatis folioso-bracteatis ; stigmatibus 2; 

 perigyniis compressis e basi ovato-lanceolata abrupte contracta 

 subsessili longe sensimque rostratis apice bifidis margine scabris 

 squamam hyalinam lanceolatam abrupte mucronatam paulo lon- 

 gioribus. — C. cyperoides, Dew., in Am. Jour, of Sc. and Arts, 

 hi, 171, non L. 



Hub. In Nov. Ebor. Comitat. " Jefferson," ubi legerunt cl. 

 I. B. Crawe, M.D., et cl. W. A. Wood, M.D. 



Culm about a foot high, leafy, smooth ; spikes sessile, densely 

 clustered, forming a compound capitate spike subtended by 3 

 long unequal foliaceous bracts much exceeding the spike. Peri- 

 gynium tapering from an abruptly contracted ovate base into a 

 long and slender scabrous bifid beak, a little exceeding the lan- 

 ceolate abruptly mucronate scale. Achenium ovate, compressed, 

 crowned with the lengthened style. 



This plant, which has a great resemblance to C. cyperoides, 

 Linn., differs from that species in the nearly sessile perigynium, 

 which tapers from a much wider and contracted (not attenuated) 

 base into a shorter beak, of which the teeth are also shorter than 

 in the European plant. The perigynia are more crowded on the 

 rachis than in C. cyperoides, the spikes of which, owing to the 

 greater length of the beaks, have a more comose appearance than 

 in our plant. The scale is shorter, abruptly mucronate, and not 

 gradually tapering as in C. cyperoides; and the achenium is 

 ovate, not ovate-oblong, as in that species. 



I may here mention that, amongst the undetermined species 

 of Carex in the rich herbarium of my friend, Prof. Gray, I find 

 C. vulpina, L., collected at, or near Columbus, Ohio, by Mr. Sul- 

 hvant ; and also a single specimen from Illinois, communicated 

 by Dr. Engelmann of St. Louis. They correspond perfectly 

 with the European plant, and the species may possibly be com- 

 mon in the Western States, where it may have been hitherto 



confounded with the nearly allied, though very distinct, C. sti- 

 pata, Muhl 



