452 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
ley.’ But his own C. foenea, var. perplexa has proved very puzzling to 
students of the group. In the original description of this variety at 
least two distinct species are referred to, while the words “ head erect or 
nearly so” have proved misleading for a plant with more flexuous spikes 
(heads) than ordinarily occur in the type of the species. 
Dr. J. M. Greenman has kindly compared with Willdenow’s original 
material various plants passing in America as Carex foenea, and he has 
furnished the writer with detailed camera-drawings from Willdenow’s 
material. From these comparisons there seems no doubt that the origi- 
nal C. foenea was, as Professor Bailey has already stated, the smallest 
form of the species, with 4 to 9 spikelets in a suberect linear-cylindrie 
spike. This is the plant subsequently described by Tuckerman 4s 
C. argyrantha and figured by Boott in his table 382, fig. 2. 
Professor Bailey’s Carex foenea, var. perplexa was based on Boott’s 
‘ table 380 and a portion of table 382 (presumably fig. 1), upon Olney’s 
C. albolutescens (Exsicc. fasc. 1, no. 8), as well as his C. albolutescens, 
var. sparsiflora (fase. V. no. 11). Now, the perigynia of good Carex 
foenea are strongly and conspicuously nerved on both faces, and the 
spikelets are pale green or silvery brown. The first part of var. pe 
plexa (Boott’s table 380) shows a perigynium quite nerveless or only 
faintly short-nerved on the inner face; the second component (table 
382, fig. 1) is the characteristic large form of C. foenea with crowded 
spikes of large spikelets; the third (C. albolutescens of Olney) 18, 48 
represented by two sheets in the Gray Herbarium, a form between . 
large state and the small typical C. foenea; while the fourth component 
(C. albolutescens, var. sparsiflora, Omey — at least the New Brunswick 
plant) in habit as well as in the nerveless inner face of the perigynium 
closely matches the first cited plate (Boott’s table 380). From the fact 
that var. perplexa was proposed as a variety of CO. foenea it is probable 
that its author had in mind the coarse form represented by Boott’s table 
382, fig. 1, and in the present treatment of the group it has seemed 
advisable to retain that name for the large plant. : 
Olney’s Carex albolutescens, var. sparsiflora is represented in the 
Olney Herbarium by two different plants. One of these, from Orego?s 
is the dark-spiked form of C. praticola which has been described as C: 
pratensis, var. furva, Bailey. The other, from Kent Co., New Brans 
wick, the northeastern plant which is identified with Boott’s table 380, 18 
much more closely related to C. adusta, Boott, than to C. foenea, Willd. 
1 Mem. Torr. Cl., I. 24. 
