274 T. Holm — Studies in the Cypevacece. 



scabrous above ; it is generally attenuated at both ends, and 

 the orifice of the beak is mostly bidentate with erect teeth, or 

 entire, oblique. The -nerves are seldom distinct, and the color- 

 ation ma}* - vary from green to deep purple or brown ; thus 

 the spikes in some species attain the same dark aspect as is 

 characteristic of the Melananthw. Another character common 

 to these European and boreal species is the position of the pis- 

 tillate spikes, being more or less remote and nearly always 

 borne on very conspicuous peduncles, in some species of quite 

 considerable length and nearly filiform. The sheaths of the 

 bracts are well developed, and in regard to the general habit, 

 these species exhibit but a few divergences, which, however, 

 may be considered as analogous deviations, such as we know 

 exist in some of the other sections. The terminal spike is 

 sometimes gynaBcandrous or androgynous in C. brachystachys 

 and, as it seems, constantly gynaecandrous in C. misandra / in 

 all the other pliostachyous, which we have examined, the ter- 

 minal spike is purely staminate. Such varied distribution of 

 the sexes is also met with among the Melananthod, the Hyme- 

 nochlcence and the Spirostachyw. And if we, moreover, con- 

 sider C. lejocarpa and C. circinata as members of the Frigidce, 

 we then perceive a still more gradual variation among the 

 species themselves: from the dioecious C. lejocarjpa to C. cir- 

 cinata with androgynous spike, and to C. sempervirens and its 

 very nearest allies with unisexual spikes, borne on the same 

 culm, to C. brachystachys with occasionally androgynous or 

 even gynsecandrous terminal spike and C. misandra with its 

 invariably gyncecandrons. Abnormally decompound pistillate 

 spikes, as these are frequently met with in several of the other 

 sections, have also been noticed in some of the Frigidce ; Boott 

 records such cases from C. brachystachys, and we have, fur- 

 thermore, found these in C. dblata Bailey and in one single 

 inflorescence of C. circinata. 



In looking over the various sections, as these are described 

 by Drejer, we have not been able to find any under which the 

 Frigidce might be properly arranged. They seem to possess 

 some characters common to the JTymenochlcence, yet lacking 

 the essential character of these : " perigynia plerisque nervata, 

 rostro apice hyalino bilobo— bifidove, vel distincte bifido," 

 besides "squamae membranaceas albidae" and "color plerumque 

 laate viridis." And in comparing them with the Spirostachyce 

 certain analogies seem to exist ; for instance, the darker color of 

 the spikes, the mostly erect and remote, pistillate spikes, while 

 "perigyniis distincte bifidis" and "spicis densifloris quasi 

 squarrosis " are not possessed by the Frigidce. We have not, 

 on the other hand, been able to detect any intergradating 

 forms between these three sections, by which the Frigidce 



