498 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
form. This larger plant was described by Lange as var. longibracteata 
and later figured by him in Flora Danica, xvii. t. 3050; and again it 
has been described by Ridley and figured in Jour. Bot. xix. 97, t. 218, 
as var. Leesii. A third European form, var. pallida, Peterm., as shown 
by Reichb. Ic. Fl. Germ. viii. 26, t. 240, has the densely flowered spike- 
lets closely approximate in an ovoid or subglobose head. 
In studying this European species in connection with the well known 
American plant which has recently been called C. communis, Bailey, the 
writer has been baffled in every attempt to find constant distinguishing 
characters to separate the plants of the two continents. The form of 
the plant most common perhaps in America is apparently rare in Europe 
(var. longibracteata, Lange; var, Leesit, Ridley), but it passes by abso- 
lutely promiscuous variations into a small form which can be distin- 
guished in none of its characters from the smaller tendency of the 
European C. pilulifera. 
By early caricologists the American plant was supposed to be Carex 
varia, Muhl., and under that name it passed until in 1889 Professor 
Bailey showed that Muhlenberg’s plant was the more slender species 
described by Dewey as C. Emmonsii. In place of the misapplied name, 
C. varia, Professor Bailey proposed for the plant which had long borne 
that name the new appellation C. communis, giving no suggestion that 
the plant has close affinity to the common C. pilulifera of Europe. To 
earlier students, however, the separation of the American and European 
plants of this group had presented many perplexities. Drejer stated in 
his Revisio that he could find no distinctions either in the descriptions or 
specimens: “ Forsitan nostra planta rectius cum ©. varia Miihlenb. 
conjungitur; quo modo autem C. variam a C. pilulifera distinguam, 
neque ex descriptione neque ex speciminibus eruere possum.” ? I 
tendahl discussing specimens in the Willdenow herbarium which he took 
for C. varia was unable to point out any character to separate it from 
C. pilulifera : “ Species haec vero simillima C. pululiferae et uti nobis 
fere videtur eadem.”? Whether Drejer and Schlechtendahl had true 
C. varia of M uhlenberg or the coarser plant which so long passed under 
that name is not perfectly’ clear, although it is probable that Schlechten- 
dahl at least had the true C. varia.? This plant, the true C. varia (¢. 
Emmonsii, Dewey) is readily distinguished from C. pilulifera by 18 
much more slender habit, very narrow leaves and smaller-bodied longet- 
beaked perigynia. 
1 Drejer, Rev. Crit., 55 
Ae : 2 Linnaea, X. 262. 
__ ® See Bailey, Mem. Torr. Club., I. 40. 
