orPERACE^;. (sedge family.) 87S 



Beak short, stout, truncate . 18 



Beak longer than body ...■...,■... 29 

 Spikes cylindrical. 



Perigynium beakless 19 



Perigynium nearly beakless, the point bent 21 



Perigynium conspicuously beaked, 



Lanceolate, flattened .... 28 



Greenish, very turgid below, large 83 



Brown and hard, with spreading setaceous teeth .... 82 var. 

 Thin, inflated, straw-colored or purple, 



More or less ascending 86, 37 



Conspicuously squarrose 88, 39 



Subgenus I. Eucarex. Staminate flowers forming one or more ter- 

 minal linear or club-shaped spikes which are often pistillate at base or apex, 

 or occasionally having a few pistillate flowers intermixed. Pistillate flowers 

 usually in distinct and normally simple mostly peduncled spikes which are 

 seldom aggregated into heads. Cross-section of the perigynium circular or 

 obtusely angular in outline. Style commonly 3-parted and the achenium 

 trigonous or triquetrous. — Passing into the following subgenus through the 

 members of the last section. 



§ 1. Spike single (in our species), androgynous, male at the top, the rhachis con- 

 spicuously jointed : perigynium lanceolate or spindle-shaped, longer than the 

 scale, deflexed at maturity : stigmas very rarely two. — Deplexocarp.*. 

 Low and mostly slender species. 



* Perigynium green, linear-lanceolate, sessile, several times longer than the scale. — 



Pauciflor.e, Tuckm. 



1. C. microglochin, Wahl. Culms rigid from a creeping base, 2 to 

 8 inches high : leaves few and narrow, shorter than the culm : staminate 

 flowers very few : perigynia 4 to 6, the orifice closed by a conspicuous pro- 

 jecting raeheola which springs from the inside beneath the achenium : scales 

 deciduous. — Uncinia microglochin, Ledeb. Colorado, probably from high 

 mountains (Hall Sr Harbour, 607) ; also in subarctic America. (Eu.) 



C. paucifloka, Lightf., distinguished by the orifice of the perigynium 

 being closed with the stiff persistent style, occurs in British America and 

 may be expected northward. 



* * Perigynium brown, spindle-shaped or narrowly ovate, stipitate, little longer 



than the scale. — Publicares, Tuckm. 



2. C. Pyrenaica, Wahl. Culm 2 to 8 inches high, slender : spike dense, 

 oblong, brown or purple, the fertile flowers erect until full maturity : leaves 



■ narrow, mostly involute-filiform, shorter than thev culms: staminate flowers few, 

 occupying $ or less the length of the spike: perigynium few-nerved or nerveless, 

 usually shining at maturity. — High mountains of Colorado, Utah, and north- 

 ward. (Eu.) 



3. C. nigricans, C. A. Meyer. Stouter: leaves nearly flat, a line or more 

 broad: staminate flowers usually conspicuous and occupying about half the spikes 

 perigynium somewhat ventricose, dull : otherwise as in the last, with which it 

 grows. — Evidently the more common species. (Asia.) 



