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the habit of what we now know as Carex normalis — but very 

 evidently belonging to the allies of C. Muhlenhergii. The long, 

 lax culms and soft, broad and spreading leaves of this strange 

 plant were very different from the stiffly erect, wiry habit of 

 characteristic C. Muhlenhergii, but the spikes were rather similar. 

 The impression of this plant was deepened by two days later 

 finding the same form frequent in similar habitats near Frazer 

 in Chester County. Again, the following day, along the Cones- 

 toga Creek above Lancaster in the county of the same name, 

 two colonies were seen — one, of plants quite like those at Frazer 

 and Fern Rock, with the spikes of the head (except the upper- 

 most) slightly separated; another, with a somewhat shorter, 

 closer head. I had the courage to name the last C. cephaloidea, 

 but, though all these plants of the previous several days' collect- 

 ing apparently had to be put into this same species, there was 

 found more than one discrepancy between my plants and the 

 manual descriptions of cephaloidea; while the specimens under 

 that name in several herbaria consisted of a very patently 

 heterogeneous series. 



Curiously enough, after seeing this plant on three almost 

 successive days in 1909 in three widely separated localities, I 

 did not meet it again for three years. 



On June 2, 1912, while being guided over some interesting 

 country along Darby Creek above West Chester Pike by Mr. 

 Charles S. Williamson, the plant was found again. This station 

 is near Adele in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Five days 

 later the margin of the wooded slopes along the Schuylkill 

 River below Ivy Rock, in Montgomery County, again produced 

 the same species. 



My early experience with Carex Muhlenhergii and its allies 

 was probably in no manner very different from other botanists 

 not specialists in this genus — as the naming of material in any 

 general collection amply shows. I had found that ''Muhlen- 

 hergii'' seemed to be the source of popular solution of all the odds 

 and ends of plants of this group, unless the specimen was left 

 unnamed, or possibly ''cephaloidea'' chosen. The chief charac- 

 teristic of the latter seemed to be that the inflorescence was in 



