FERNALD. — VARIATIONS OF BOREAL CARICES. 503 
where present shows in the American plant a variation from 2 to 5.5 
mm. and in the European from 2 to 4.5 mm. These measurements, 
however, include the largest American form, in which all the parts are 
conspicuously more developed than in the smaller American and the 
apparently identical European plant. 
The length of the lower bract, emphasized in the descriptions of 
C. pilulifera, var. longibracteata and var. Leesii, seems to the writer 
an unfortunate character to make prominent. In America, at least, 
this elongation of the bract accompanies no other definable character. 
It is a purely vegetative development which may occur either in the 
large form (C. varia [typical] of Boott’s Ill. t. 288) or in the smaller 
C. communis, var. Wheeleri with shorter inflorescence and more approxi- 
mate spikelets. 
This study of the European Carex pilulifera and the American C. 
clusions. The form of C. pilulifera of Europe with the pistillate spike- 
lets subapproximate or slightly remote, the lowest from 0.5 to 1 cm. 
apart, is also common in America, where the plant has passed generally 
as C. varia, var. minor, Boott; C. communis, Bailey, and C. pedicellata, 
Britton, in part; or C. communis, var. Wheeleri, Bailey (C. pedicellata, 
var. Wheeleri, Britton). Another European form, the large C. piluli- 
fera, var. longibracteata, Lange, is rare in Europe, but in America is 
represented by the large extreme which has passed as C. varia and later 
as C. communis and C. pedicellata. ‘The American plants, then, should 
be called 
C. prrutirera, L. Culms 1 to 5 dm. high, usually overtopping the 
leaves: inflorescence 1 to 3.5 cm. long, the lowest spikelet subtended 
by a short and narrow or sometimes elongated broad bract: staminate 
spikelet from green to chestnut-brown or maroon, sessile or stalked, 
-0 to 20 mm. long; pistillate spikelets 1 to 5, loosely flowered, 4 to 
11 mm. long, sessile or short-pedicelled, subapproximate or slightly 
remote, the lowest rarely 1.5 cm. apart: perigynia hairy, obscurely 
3-angled, 2.5 to 3.5 mm. long, the body plump, obovoid or subglobose, 
with a more or less elongated spongy nerveless or slightly nerved 
Stipitate base; the beak broad, bidentate, rarely 1 mm. long, nearly 
or quite equalled by the green brown or reddish-brown ovate acuminate 
scale. —Sp. 976; Gooden. Trans. Linn. Soc. ii. 190; Schk. Riedgr. 
78, t. I, fig. 39; Andersson, Cyp. Scand. 30, t. 7, fig. 82; Reichb. Ic. 
Fl. Germ. viii. t. 260; Boott, Ill. ii. 96, t. 283. C. filiformis, Pol. 
Pl. Palat. ii. 581; Vahl, Fl. Dan. vi. t. 1048; not L. C. Bastardi- 
