280 Caricography. 
This is the plant considered in Vol. Vil. p. 2€8, to be the 
C,. alpestris, Allion. Although it had been compared with 
this species and pronounced the same, the examination of per- 
fect specimens of C. alpestris lately received from Germany 
shows that the botanist was mistaken, much as our plant re- 
sembles that. C. alpestris is a larger plant ; has larger spikes 
and fruit ; its staminate scale is oblong, obtuse ; its fruit obovate 
or pytiform, distinctly triquetrous, with a shorter beak in pro- 
portion to its magnitude ; its pistillate scale is oblong and long- 
er. These characters clearly distinguish it from our plant. 
Note. C. alba, Henke, which was announced in Vol. VII. 
p. 266, and which I have since found in abundance upon 
GoalkJsland near the Falls, differs from the specimens received 
from Germany in the setaccous form of the leaves. The fruit 
and its scale is rather smaller than those of the Kuropean 
specimens, but exactly like them, the fruit on both being 
black in maturity. Some of the leaves on those from Europe 
are narrow and resemble those upon our plant. 
80. C. oligecarpa. Schk. 
Muh., Pursh, Eaton, Pers. no. 148, Schw. 
Schk. tab. Vvv fig. 170. 
Spicis distinctis; spica staminifera solitaria ebracteata ; 
spicis fructiferis tristigmaticis ternis subquinquifloris oblongis 
distantibus longo exserte pedunculatis et laxis; fructibus 
ovatis triquetris alternis glabris nervosis apice excurvis et 
brevi-rostratis ore integris, squama ovata paulo longioribus. 
Culm 6—16 inches high, triquetrous, slender, slightly 
winged, striate, scabrous above, decumbent; leaves linear- 
lanceolate, flat, carinate, striate, rather soft, rough on the 
edge, subradical, with white or tawny sheaths at the base ; 
bracts like the leaves, upper ones surpassing the culm, leafy, 
with short sheaths; staminate spike single, oblong, trique- 
trous, rather short, from the bract of the upper pistillate, and 
pedunculate ; staminate scale tawny witha green keel, at 
length nearly white, ovate-lanceolate, lower one large; pis- 
tillate spikes two to four, generally three, alternate, oblong, 
ihree to nine flowered, usually about five-fiowered, distant, 
the lowest subradical; with long, slender, exsert and lax pe- 
duncles; the highest peduncle often nét surpassing the 
sheath ; fruit ovate, sometimes nearly obovate, triquetrous, 
nerved, glabrous, alternate, short-rostrate and a little re- 
