34 BULLETIN ~A5. U. 5. DEPARTMENT OE AGEICrLTTTKE. 
seeds are found about August 20. and by the end of the first week in 
September the whole seed crop has ripened. Data on the vitality 
of the seeds were obtained only in 1909, when an average from three 
tests gave 27.5 per cent germination. 
As its common name implies, sheep sedge is a highly relished 
sheep forage. The leaves are tender and juicy throughout the sum- 
mer, and the plant seems to be consumed with about the same eager- 
ness at all times during the growing season. Horses, too. graze this 
sedge with unusual eagerness, consuming flower stalks with the same 
avidity as the leaf blades. Since sheep sedge is restricted to moist 
habitats it is. of course, not very abundant, but in favorable situa- 
tions it holds its own remarkably well, and it is not uncommon to 
find it predominating over other sedges and more fastidious species 
almost to their entire exclusion. 
Three other species, usually called marsh or water sedges. \ . ~ 9- 
tiva. 0. vulgaris bracteosa, and C. tolmiei subsessUis, are. on account 
of their general appearance, forage value, and distribution, often con- 
fused with sheep sedge. Of these. Car ex f estiva resembles it most, 
but differs in many minute characters (compare Plates XXVIII and 
XXIX . The leaves of Oar ex /estiva are much broader and coarser, 
and are rough on the edge, and the color of the plant is light green. 
The other two species, C. tolmiei subsessUis and C. vulgaris hracteosa 
(Plates XXX and XXXI have much more elongated spikes, of a 
brown-black color, which alone should eliminate confusion. The 
latter attains about twice the height of the former, and its culms are 
more acutely angular. The forage value of all three species is prac- 
tically the same, though O. vulgaris hracteosa is relatively less abund- 
ant than the other two. C. tolmiei subsessUis remains palatable to 
stock for a longer period than either of the others, but is more abund- 
ant in the alpine or upper sub alpine regions, and therefore matures 
later, being of little importance as forage when the other species are 
of highest value. 
Elk Ge>. s - 
1 Car ex geyeri.) 
Of the dry-land sedges, elk grass is by far the most abundant. It 
occurs in the Canadian and Hudsonian zones, often as the predomi- 
nating species on exposed hillsides, and is among the earliest of the 
herbs to send forth its leaf blades. Many hillsides have been almost 
wholly vegetated by this species. 
Since elk grass produces new plants by stolons the growth is dense 
and segments of a tuft are almost inseparable Plate XXXII . The 
slender, angled, rough culms, about 1 foot high, exceed but slightly 
the harsh and rough-edged leaf blades. The spikes are slender, 
borne at the summit of the culm, the staminate flowers usually 
appearing above, and the pistillate (1 or 2 in number' below. 
