FERNALD. — CARICES OF SECTION HYPARRHENAE, 455 
and above all, it is far more variable. ... There are probably no 
species common to both countries, except those which are hyperboreal 
and occur through the Arctic regions of both hemispheres, being found 
in Greenland.” + 
Then Professor Bailey defines his conception of the “habitually 
taller” American plant with “sharper” scales, ete., etc., including in it 
forms varying from the low slender Carex stellulata, var. angustata, 
Carey, with “narrowly-lanceolate perigynia tapering into a long .. . 
beak,” ? to the tall (often nearly 1 m. high) coarse C. sterilis, Willd., 
with broad-ovate perigynia, and the slender C. scirpoides, Schkuhr, with 
thick scarcely beaked often nerveless deltoid-ovate perigynia and elliptic 
blunt scales. The two latter constituents of this aggregate apparently 
do not occur outside North America and if they are included with the 
other American representative of C. echinata as one species, it is of 
course easily said that the American plant is taller or shorter, coarser or 
more slender than the European ; and certainly a species so constituted 
is “far more variable.” 
When, however, we eliminate from the complex Carex sterilis of Pro- 
fessor Bailey’s treatment the true C. sterilis and C. scirpoides, there is left 
a plant characterized by slender culms and leaves, the perigynia barely 
half as broad as long, and tapering to a slender conspicuous beak which 
is often nearly as long as the body. ‘This is the C. echinata or C. stellu- 
lata of American authors and it includes as formal variations the very 
slender var. angustata, Carey (C. echinata, var. microstachys, Boeckeler), 
and the tall C. sterilis, var. excelsior, Bailey, while a very coarse varia- 
tion with rather better defined characteristics is C. echinata, var. cepha- 
lantha, Bailey. 
his American species with the narrow perigynia has been compared 
many times by the writer with European C. echinata in a vain attempt 
to find some point of distinction. Specimens collected by Godet at 
Ligniéres on the River Cher in central France are inseparable from 
Mertens’ material from Sitka, and, again, Japanese specimens collected 
by Chas. Wright and by Maries are identical in their slender perigynia 
with Newfoundland plants. In order, however, to test still further the 
specific value’ of the American plant a portion of Allen’s Labrador mate- 
rial was forwarded to Dr. Greenman at Berlin, and he was asked to 
compare it, along with other American forms, with Willdenow’s types 
1 Bailey, Bull. Torr. we aed 423. 
2 Carey in Gray, Man. 
