26 



conspicuous. New England and Pennsylvania, and westward to 



Michigan and Minnesota. 



The species, as I have drawn it, includes larger forms than 

 those described either by Willdenow or Tuckerman. Willde- 

 now's specimens, particularly, are weak and short-headed, but as 

 they were from cultivated plants they cannot be regarded as 

 wholly representative of the species. The specimens of C.fo^nea 

 in Willdenow's herbarium are immature, but the characters are 

 evident. Moreover, among the specimens of C. ovalis, in Willde- 

 now's collection, is a sheet of the same, the specimens being more 

 developed. This sheet is evidently from the same plants as the 

 original; in fact, in the general herbarium at Berlin this plant is 

 again mixed with " C. ovalis,'' and as C. ovalis was cultivated in 

 the gardens at that time {vide Enum. PL Hort. Berol.), it is ap- 

 parent that the original C. /(rnea was mixed with it in culture. 

 It is evident, therefore, that the specimens lying with C, ovalis^ 



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duplicates of the type. These duphcates are important, for they 

 are mostly mature, although they differ in no other respect from 

 Willdenow's type specimens. The same plant is again in the 

 general herbarium, from Link, ticketed ''Cfcenea, H, B/' ( '*Hort. 

 Berol.").* When Dr. Gray examined the plants of Willdenow, 

 Carex adtista had not been separated from C. straminea^ and it 

 is not strange that he did not fully comprehend the plant in 

 question. The plant understood as C. fcenea by Torrey and by 

 him referred to C. straminea (v. s. Hb. Torr.), is wholly distinct 

 from the plant of Willdenow, and Torrey's C. straminea var. 

 fceiiea may, therefore, stand. Boeckeler appears to have been the 

 first to separate the plant of Willdenow from that of Torrey. 

 (Linnaea, xxxix. 117 (1875) ), but he refers it to his fourth form 

 of C straminea. 



Willdenow's specimens are ambiguous' but I cannot identify 

 them with any other species. The thin and almost translucent 

 perigynia are characteristic of the American plant. 



*There is also a plant in the general herbarium, from Kunth, which is labelled 

 C, fcsfiea and certified to by Wahlenberg, but it is evidently a scoparia-like form 

 of C stramifiea. 



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