155 



can still be found elsewhere. It is the termination of the oppor- 

 tunity to study various interesting problems of potamology and 

 phytogeography,* as for example, how so many coastal plain 

 plants managed to establish themselves or persist in these interior 

 localities. As no two shoals are exactly alike, the effacement of 

 any one of them is an irreparable loss. But as it is impossible 

 to measure such a loss in money, there is not much hope that the 

 interests of science will ever be permitted to outweigh those of 

 commercialism. 



A NEW NORTHEASTERN SEDGE 



By Kenneth K. Mackenzie 



• In addition to several species, which are also of wide European 

 distribution, the group of which Carex flava L. is best known, is 

 represented in the northeastern part of North America by a 

 widely distributed plant which is unlike anything known from 

 Europe. In all the European species of the group characterized 

 by long beaked perigynia, the perigynia beaks are rough and 

 strongly brownish-red tipped at the apex and the pistillate scales 

 are also strongly brownish-red colored and very conspicuous in 

 the spikes. In the American plant under discussion the perigynia 

 beaks are smooth or obscurely few- toothed, under a microscope, 

 and are whitish at the apex when young or in age are light 

 tawny colored. The brownish-red tint is lacking in the scales, and 

 the scales are very inconspicuous in the spikes, at maturity being 

 concealed by the perigynia. These characters give this plant a 

 markedly different appearance from that presented by the other 

 members of this group, and enable it to be readily recognized 

 in the field. 



This plant was long ago recognized as distinct from Carex 

 flava L. by Dewey, who treated it as identical with the European 

 Carex lepidocarpa Tausch. Olney distributed various specimens 



* See Bull. Torrey Club 32: 161. 1905; 37: 109. 1910; Geol. Surv. Ala. Monog. 

 8: 148. 1913. Since the last publication appeared the dam of the Coosa River 

 there referred to has been completed, flooding several square miles of country, 

 including an unrecorded station for Sabal glabra, among other things. 



