CYPEKACB^}. (SEDGE FAMILY.) 395 



76. C. lagopina, Wahl. Cespitose: culms 4 Jo 10 inches high, erect, 

 rather longer than the leaves : spikes usually 3, often 5 or 6, subglobose or ovoid, 

 reddish-brown, compactly flowered, contiguous or the lowest a little remote, all 

 small, longer than the scale-like bracts : perigynium small, obouate or elliptical, 

 usually colored above, thick in texture, nerved, tapering towards the base, often 

 curved, rather abruptly short-beaked, the beak with a closed fissure on the outer 

 side, longer than the ovate, broad, brown, hyaline-margined acute scale. — Uinta 

 Mountains, Utah ( Watson). A small alpine species, distinguished by its heads 

 of few dark-colored spikes, its narrow leaves, and cespitose habit. (Eu.) 



*- *- +- Perigynium ovate, sharp-margined, firm, often thickened at the base, 

 spreading, in open and at maturity stellate spikes. 



77. C. echinata, Murr. Cespitose : culms sharply angled, smooth or 

 rough, slender and erect (6 inches to 2 feet high), usually longer than the 

 narrow, pale leaves: spikes small, about 8 to 15-flowered, scattered, globular, 

 the upper one conspicuously contracted below with staminate flowers, or 

 rarely all the spikes staminate or all pistillate (C. sterilis, Willd.) : perigynium 

 ovate or ovate-lanceolate, gradually narrowed into a sharp-edged, rough, 

 toothed beak, nerved, spreading or reflexed, about the length of or longer 

 than the acute scale. — C. stdlulata, Gooden. Var. mickocarpa, Bcklr. 

 ( C. scirpoides, Schk., C. stellulata, var. scirpoides, Carey) includes small and 

 fewer-flowered forms. Twin Lakes, Colorado ( John Wolfe) ; also in Arizona 

 and British America. (Eu.) 



* # Spikes tawny or dark, rather large, sometimes crowded: perigynium with 

 a more or less thin or winged margin which is mostly incurved at maturity, 

 rendering the perigynium concave inside. — Ovales, Kunth. 



i- Spikes aggregated into a more or less dense head. 



78. C. Bonplandii, Kunth, var. angUStifolia, Boott. Stoloniferous: 

 culm slender and nearly naked (a foot or more high), longer than the grass-like 

 leaves: spikes 3 to 6, small and chaffy, crowded into a small capitate dark brown 

 head which is a half-inch or less long : bracts scale-like, often setaceously 

 pointed, sometimes inconspicuous, never longer than the head : perigynium 

 ovate or ovate-lanceolate, somewhat colored, narrowed into a serrate beak about as 

 long as the body, nerved, narrowly winged, about the length of the acutish scale or a 

 little longer and about as wide. — C. Bonplandii, var. minor, Olney. Mountains 

 of Colorado and Utah. The species, which is South American, evidently occurs 

 in California, and the C. tenuirostris, Olney in herb., collected in Wyoming by 

 C. C. Parry, may be the same. It is lower and stiffer in habit than the variety 

 with larger heads (which are lighter colored) and a greenish perigynium. 

 Forms of this species appear to unite it with the next, but in general they 

 may be distinguished by the narrowly winged perigynium. 



79. C. festiva, Dew. Cespitose: culms usually slender, 6 inches to 2£ 

 feet high, longer than the flat stem-leaves: spikes 6 to 15, roundish, small, densely 

 aggregated (occasionally somewhat loosely) into a fulvous dark brown or green 

 and brown ovoid head (which is J to 1 inch in diameter) : bract usually incon- 

 spicuous, sometimes as long as the head, narrow: perigynium varying from 

 broad-ovate at base to long-lanceolate, greenish, conspicuously winged (half its width 

 or more being consumed in the thin margins), narrowed gradually into a 



