268 Professor Dewey's Caricography. 



scale. I had considered the C. pallescens as an undescri- 

 bed species until I examined the fig. of Schk. But our 

 plant resembles the fig. in Schk. so exactly, except in the 

 length of the scale, that I am satisfied it must be another of 

 the European species to be credited to our country. 



C.Jiliformis. Gooden. 

 Schk. tab. K. fig. 45. 

 Pers. no. 190- and Rees' Cyc; 



C. " Spicis subsessilibus oblongis, bracteis brevissime 

 vaginantibus foliatis remotiusculis, capsulis ovali ellipticis 

 villosis rostello bifurcato j foliis convolutis." — Wahl.no. 77, 



Agardh gives the following popular description of this 

 species in his Car. Scan. 



"Culm two feet high, roundish, smooth; leaves chan- 

 nelled, destitute of a keel, smooth, scabrous on the margin. 

 Bracts leafy, surpassing the culm. Staminate spike one 

 or two, lanceolate, with an oblong rather acute scale having 

 its nerve yellow; pistillate spike one, oftener two, with a 

 mucronate scale having a green keel, capsule thickly to- 

 mentose. 



Our plant, as well as the European, inhabits marshes. 

 It has been supposed to be C. pellita. Muh. It differs from 

 the real C. pdlita, Muh., so well shown in the figures of 

 Schk,, especially in its leaves. The leaves of C. pellita 

 are flat ; of C. filiformis, are convolute. The fruit of the 

 former is ovate, pilose, and bicuspid ate ; of the latter, is 

 elliptic, villose, and bi-furcate. C. filiformis should be 

 placed in the same subdivision in Ph. and Eaton as C pel- 

 lita. 



C. alpestris. Allion. 



Schk. tab. G. fig. 35. 

 C. gynobasis. Pers. no. 141. 

 C. alpestris : spicis subpaucifloris, infima longissime ex- 

 serte pedunculata, superioribus subpedunculatis ; bractea in- 

 fima radicali foliata, superioribus spicse masculse subapproxi- 

 matis brevissime vaginantibus cuspidato-subfoliolatis; cap- 

 sulis oblongo-turbinatis triquetris apiculatis sub-pubescenti- 

 bus ore unilobo. — Wahl, No. 99. 



The following description is from Willd. Sp. PI. 

 " Staminate spike solitary; pistillate spikes three, five- 

 flowered, two approximate and sessile, the lowest radical 

 with a very long peduncle ; fruit obovate-oblong, three-si- 



