CYPERACE^E. (SEDGE FAMILY.) 377 



Mountains, 9,000 feet altitude ; and high northward. A delicate and pretty 

 species. The terminal spike is rarely all pistillate. 



* * Skeathless: bracts green or folinceous: perigynium triquetrous. — Tri- 



QUETRiE. 



13. C. pubescens, MuhL Whole plant soft hairy: culms slender, 1 to 2 

 feet high : leaves flat and soft : pistillate spikes 2 to 4, oblong and rather tightly 

 flowered, £ to f inch long, scattered near the top of the culm, the lowest shortly 

 peduncled and subtended by a leafy sheathless bract from 1 to 3 inches long; 

 perigynium ovate, boldly triquetrous, very hairy, contracted into a slender nearly 

 entire beak over half as long as the body : scale broad below, white and thin on the 

 margins, abruptly contracted into a rough awn ivhich equals or exceeds the peri- 

 gynium. — Missouri River below Fort Pierre (Hayden). A species of doubtful 

 affinity, placed here provisionally. 



§ 5. Spike one (in our species), small, the pistillate flowers few : perigynium 

 smooth (sometimes minutely dentate on the angles), firm or horny, mostly shin- 

 ing or glossy, lightly nerved or nerveless, bearing a short beak: scales obtuse 

 with hyaline margins: stigmas 3. (The mature perigynium of No. 15 is 

 unknown ) — Lamprochl.en.e, Drejer. Small plants, with creeping root- 

 stocks. Our species all fall under the group Rupestres, Tuckm. 



14. C rupestris, All. Cespitose and somewhat stoloniferous : culms ob- 

 tusely angled, erect, 1 to 4 inches high, usually a little longer than the long- 

 pointed and mostly channelled leaves; spike linear or clavate (£ to 1 inch long) : 

 perigynium upright, plano-convex, obovate or elliptic, firm in texture, dull, very 

 lightly nerved, abruptly contracted into a short and stout truncate beak, hidden by 

 the amplectant and very broad dark scale. — C. Drummondiana, Dew. Sierra 

 Blanca, Col. (Hooker fr Gray), and Hall Sf Harbour No. 273, according to 

 Wm. Boott; British America and high northward. (Eu.) 



15. C. Lyoni, Boott. Rootstocks somewhat creeping or perhaps strictly 

 cespitose : culms short, 1 to 6 (usually 2 or 3) inches high, rigid, mostly shorter 

 than the very rigid, bristle-like glaucous leaves, surrounded at the base by a mass 

 of brown leafless sheaths : spike linear ; the staminate flowers 3 to 6 ; the 

 pistillate 7 to 9 : perigynium ovate-lanceolate, pallid, finely few-nerved ; the 

 beak hyaline, minutely and obliquely toothed, about the length or a little 

 shorter than the obtuse and hyaline-margined scale. — Twin Lakes (John 

 Wolfe) and Berthoud Pass (Vasey), Colorado; also in British America. 

 Known only from immature specimens. Its stiff and bristle-like leaves and 

 culms are its best known characters. 



16. C. Obtusata, Lilj. Very extensively creeping by long and slender brown- 

 ish rootstocks: culms 2 to 7 inches high, longer than the fiat and long-pointed 

 leaves: spike at maturity ovate or narroivly ovoid, half -inch or less long, the pistil- 

 late flowers 4 to 10 : perigynium at first pa'e, brownish at the top, when mature 

 spreading and becoming brown or dark brown-purple, glossy, very horny in texture, 

 turgid-ovate, stipitate, contracted into a stout obliquely cut and conspicuously white- 

 hyaline beak, longer and broader than the membranaceous, acute, and often de 

 ciduous scale : achenium short and broadly triangular. — C. spicata, Schk 

 C. affinis, R. Br. C. obesa, All., var. monostachya, Bceckeler. South Park, 

 Colorado, to Montana, westward and northward. (Eu.) 



