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CAREX NOTES FEOM THE BEITISH MUSEUM. 



By L. H. Bailey. 



To the student of American Carices the National Herbarium at 

 South Kensington possesses peculiar interest, because it contains, 

 among other treasures, the herbarium of Edward Rudge, and the 

 types of the species described by Eobert Brown from the collections 

 made in the high north by the expeditions of Captain Parry and 

 others. Although the species described by Eudge and Brown are 

 comparatively few, they are important from the earliness of their 

 publication and the considerable obscurity in which they have 

 remained. 



Eudge described and figured five new species of American Carices 

 in 1804 in the Linnean Transactions : 0. intumescens, C. ovata, 



C. tenuis, C. giyantea, and C. ftexilis. C. intumescens and C. tenuis 



have been properly understood, the former being maintained, and 

 the latter falling as a synonym to Michaux's C. debilis, which has 

 & year's priority. C. ovata was reduced by Dr. Boott to a variety 

 of C~ atrata Linn., but its character does not appear to have been 

 mlly apprehended. Certain very marked specimens from the Eocky 

 Mountains were referred here, although there has been no evidence 

 that these western plants occur in Newfoundland, whence Eudge 

 obtained his specimens, nor could they be satisfactorily referred to 

 the species characterized by Eudge. I have long felt that the so- 

 called C. atrata of the White Mountains of New Hampshire is at 

 least a distinct variety from the species as it occurs in Europe and 

 the Eocky Mountains, and that Eudge must have had the same 

 from Newfoundland. Budge's specimens are the same as those 

 from the White Mountains, although more slender than ordinarily 

 found there, and the perigynia are so young that the spikes had 

 not assumed their cylindrical character. In my opinion, Budge's 

 Dame should be applied to the eastern plant which he characterized, 

 and the western plant should be separated from it : — 



C. atrata Linn., var. ovata Boott, 111. 114, in part. C. ovata 

 Budge, Linn. Trans, vii. 90, t. 9. — Distinguished from the species 

 by its habitually more slender habit, its long-peduncled and more 

 or less drooping spikes, which are reddish brown in colour and 

 smaller, and scales usually shorter and blunter.— White Mountains 

 of New Hampshire and Newfoundland. 



Var. discolor. C. atrata var. ovata Boott in part; and Bailey, 

 -Proc Am. Acad. Arts and Sci. xiv. (n. s.) 77. — Spikes long- 

 cylindrical, drooping; perigynium very broad and thin, commonly 

 broader and often longer than the black scale, white or whitish ; 

 laminate flowers very numerous, and covered by long and acute 

 scales. — Mountains of Colorado and Utah and southward. This 

 plant approaches C. Mertenrii Presc, and has been confounded 

 ^'h it. It is not improbable that it is specifically distinct from 

 c « atrata. Certain European forms of C. atrata resemble this 

 plant, but none of them possess its peculiar perigynia, and par- 

 ticularly not its numerous and long staminate scales. 



Journal of Botany.— Vol. 26. [Nov., 1888.] Y 



