175 



County, June 18, 1939, R. T. C. 3917 ; and wooded bluff by creek, 

 Sinclairville, June 24, 1924, K. M. Wiegand 15286. A further 

 locality, reported by Zenkert (1934), is South Wales in Erie 

 County. Hamburg, also cited by Zenkert, is on the Great Lakes 

 Plain. From just south of the terminal moraine, in the Allegany 

 State Park, House and Alexander (1927) reported C. aestivalis as 

 frequent. 



House (1924) reported Car ex Baileyi (C. lurida var. gracilis) 

 southward to Greene and Herkimer Counties, also from Campville, 

 Tioga County. House and Alexander (1927) reported this same 

 variety as common in the Allegany State Park, an unglaciated 

 area. On the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, where typical Carex 

 lurida is common, the var. gracilis seems to be rare. Records are 

 available only from Allegany, Chemung, and Tioga Counties. The 

 following two collections are in the herbarium of Cornell Univer- 

 sity: open swaly clearing in white oak woods, Comfort Hill, 

 Chemung County, June 29, 1938, S. /. Smith & Harvey Scudder 

 933 ; and woods along brook on west side of Alma Hill, Allegany 

 County, June 18, 1939, R. T. C. 3920. In this herbarium there are 

 several specimens intermediate between Carex lurida var. typica 

 and var. gracilis. These are from Rutland County, Vermont ; Nor- 

 folk County, Massachusetts ; Hartford County, Connecticut ; Albany 

 and Fulton Counties, New York; and Haywood County, North 

 Carolina. These support Wahl's (1940) statement that "Carex 

 Baileyi (C lurida var. gracilis [Boott] Bailey) is very closely 

 related to C. lurida." In counting chromosomes of Carex lurida, 

 Wahl found haploid numbers of 32 and 33 for three plants of the 

 typical variety. A plant of var. gracilis was n = 34. Wahl's data 

 for various Carices reveal that plants which are morphologically 

 similar and which certainly belong to the same taxonomic species 

 may differ in having one or two chromosomes more or less. Accord- 

 ingly, the number 34, mentioned above, does not strengthen the 

 case for treating var. gracilis as a species, since typical C. lurida 

 already is known to be either w = 32 or 33. Though found primarily 

 in the northern part of the range of the species and usually at 

 higher altitudes, the var. gracilis can not be regarded as a strongly 

 geographical entity, since its distribution lies entirely within the 

 area of typical C. lurida. 



