304 T. Holm — Studies in the Gyperaceoe. 



staminate flowers lanceolate, mucronate, hyaline with green 

 mid vein, those of the pistillate flowers (fig. 5) ovate, acuminate 

 and mucronate, hyaline, much shorter than the perigynium ; 

 perigynium stipitate, nearly erect, ovate-lanceolate, plano-con- 

 vex, spongions at the base, wingless, several-nerved on the 

 convex (figs. 5-6), nerveless on the plane face (fig. 7), light 

 green to almost hyaline, scabrous along the narrow beak, 

 which is emarginate and deeply slit on the convex face ; stig- 

 mata two. 



Collected at Palm Springs (Agua Caliente), desert base of 

 San Jacinto Mountain, at an elevation of 500-700 ft., in 

 Southern California, by Mr. S. B. Parish (No. 4144). 



The last three species : G phceolepis, chrysoleuca and vitrea 

 are characteristic by the staminate portion of their spikes being 

 very prominent, and by this character they are readily dis- 

 tinguished from all other members of the Acanthophorce. 

 However, there is a fourth species " G. vallicola " described by 

 Dewey* which is said to exhibit the same peculiarity : u hav- 

 ing the staminate part of the spikelet a short projecting col- 

 umn or cylinder at the apex, often longer than the pistillate 

 part," and we thought at first that one of our species might be 

 identical with this. But the perigynium of G vallicola is 

 described as " obovate, tapering below, rostrate and stiped, at 

 the orifice oblique," besides " being nerveless," thus showing a 

 marked distinction from the structure of the perigynia pos- 

 sessed by i>ur species. Dewey's plant was collected in Jack- 

 son's Hole, on Snake River, at an elevation of 600jO ft., by Dr. 

 F. V. Hayden, but the specimens which the writer has had 

 the opportunity to examine, were so young and poorly repre- 

 sented, that they gave no illustration of the species whatever, 

 and as we have learned from Mr. Clarke, there is no material 

 of it in the Kew Herbarium. So far, G. vallicola stands as an 

 imperfectly known species, but is evidently a near ally of those 

 three, described above. 



Car ex venustftla sp. n. 



Rhizome matted with short stolons, the scale-like leaves 

 brown, becoming fibrillose ; basal leaves as long as the culm, nar- 

 row and flat, slightly scabrous, the cauline much shorter, but 

 with long sheaths ; culm about 42 cm in height, slender and weak, 

 triangular, scabrous, aphyllopodic ; spikes three to four, the ter- 

 minal staminate, clavate, the lateral pistillate or the uppermost 

 sometimes androgynous, contiguous, all borne on filiform pedun- 

 cles, drooping, short and dense-flowered, subtended by sheath- 

 ing bracts, of which the lowest one has a blade about as long 



* This Journal, II, vol. xxxii, 1861, p. 40. 



