14 T. Holm — Studies in the Cyperacece. 



Scirpece 



Eleocharis ovata R. Br. (No. 34,772). 



K palustris R. Br. (No. 34,773). 



Scirpus ccespitosus L. Alt. 3,500 ft. (No. 34,770). 



IS. JSIacounii nob. (No. 34,771). (Fig. 9.) 



JEriophorum gracile Koch. (No. 34,769). 



E. angustifolium Roth. Alt. 5,000 ft. (No. 34,768). 



II. Notes on New or Little Known Species. 

 Car ex vitilis Fries. 



Several authors have generally confounded this well defined 

 species with G. brunnescens (Pers.) Poir., known also as O. 

 Persoonii Sieber, and C. Gebhardi Hoppe, furnishing a diag- 

 nosis which may be well suitable to both, but far from correct as 

 to either. Both have been very clearly defined by Fries him- 

 self,* by Koch,f BlyttJ and various others, and the distinctive 

 characters may be drawn up as follows : The inflorescence of O. 

 vitilis is composed of about five, remote, subglobose spikes with 

 yellowish, spreading perigynia of which the beak is quite distinct 

 and almost entire. In C. Persoonii, on the other hand, the 

 spikes are oblong, brownish, and the perigynia are not spreading, 

 but erect with a beak slit in its entire length on the outer, convex 

 face. Both species are closely related to the frequent G. can- 

 escens L. but from which they are readily distinguished, how- 

 ever, by their color, as indicated, their slender culms and nar- 

 row leaves, and especially by the structure and position of the 

 perigynium. 



If this distinction be sufficient for considering O. vitilis and 

 C. Persoonii valid species, a view which the writer feels most 

 inclined to uphold, the latter, C. Persoonii, evidently does not 

 occur on this continent, judging from the fact that we have 

 never observed it in any of the large collections so far examined. 



Carex f estiva Dew. 

 Very few Yignem exhibit such pronounced ability to vary 

 as is possessed by this species, and the plasticity becomes espe- 

 cially noticeable when we compare individuals from various 

 stations from East to West: from Scandinavia to the Pacific 

 slope, rather than from North to South or at different elevations 

 in the mountains. For strange as it seems, several of the most 

 characteristic deviations from the type often occur at the same 

 altitude, from the subalpine to the high alpine regions, besides 



* Fries, Elias : Novit. Florae Suecicas mantissas, iii, p. 137. 



Same: Summa veget. Scand., 1846, p. 223. 



Same : Botan. Notiser, Lund., 1844, p. 23. 

 f Koch: Synopsis Floras Germ, et Helvet., ii, 1857, p. 655. 

 % Blytt, M. N. : Norges Flora., i, 1861, p. 199. 



