500 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 
Wheeler’s specimens from Grand Ledge, Michigan; Macoun’s 1876 
material from Quesnelie, British Columbia, with specimens of C. piluli- 
fera from Berne, Switzerland (Seringe); Stockholm, Sweden (Andersson) ; 
Finland (Simming) ; the Grosser Pfalzberg, Austria (/aldesy, no. 1064), 
and St. Petersburg, Russia (7wrczaninow) ; shows conclusively that the 
remoteness of the spikelets is not to be relied upon in separating our 
smaller American material from the European plant. In the accom- 
panying tabulation of measurements from European specimens and the 
smaller form of the American plant it will be seen that in the length of 
the inflorescence and the number, length and remoteness of spikelets 
essentially identical conditions are found, although the European mate- 
rial shows a tendency to a reduction in the length of the rachis between 
spikelets, thus passing to the short-headed var. pallida, while the Ameri- 
can plant varying toward the elongated variety longibracteata shows a 
natural lengthening of the rachis. 
Dr. Boott laid stress upon the more abundantly flowered spikelets of 
C. pilulifera, but an examination of the European material shows that 
this character is maintained only in the extreme specimens with unusu- 
ally full spikelets. In the others many spikelets are found bearing less 
than ten flowers while not a few have only four or five. The presence 
or absence, in the American or the European plant, of staminate flowers 
at the tips of the pistillate spikelets is likewise a character upon which 
little reliance can be placed. Both Goodenough! and Dr. Boott? noted 
this tendency in European specimens and in a sheet of Austrian material 
it is very conspicuous. In America likewise this tendency to androgy- 
nous spikelets occurs, but it seems to be quite as unusual as in Europe. 
The pale or castaneous scales of Carex communis were emphasized by 
Dr. Boott as opposed to the purple scales of C. pilulifera. Students of 
American Carices, however, are all familiar with specimens of C. com- 
munis from sunny or open situations in which the scales are quite as 
purple (or rather maroon) as in C. pennsylvanica ; and many specimens 
of European C. pilulifera show quite as little color in the scales as do 
the commoner plants of America. 
é basal nerves supposed to distinguish the perigynium of C. com- 
munis from that of C. pilulifera are also quite as often wanting as 
present; and although Dr. Boott laid stress upon this character in his 
comparative note, he described the perigynia of C. communis (his C. 
varia) as “enerviis vel basi plus minus nervatis pallidis.” The length, 
as a Se 
1 Trans. Linn. Soc., IT. 191, 2 Til, II. 96. 
