Norlh American Cyjicracea. 241 
we find only eleven si^ecies (belonging- to five genera) recorded 
as natives of North America. In the Species Plantarum of 
Willdenow, (vol. 1. part 1, 1797, and vol. 4, part 1, 1805, which 
contain all the Cyperaceae) we find 60 North American species, 
42 of which belong to the genus Carex, and were mostly com- 
municated to the author hy Muhlenberg, The Flora Boreali- 
Americana of Michaux, (1803) edited in part by the elder 
Richard, contains only 54 species of Cyperaceae, which are, 
however, very accurately described. The second volume of 
Vahl's Enumeratio Plantarum, published in 1806, contains 
much original information respecting these plants. He de- 
scribed some important new genera, and a great number of new 
species, but his work contains comparatively few North Ame- 
rican Cyperaceae. Persoon, in his Synopsis Plantan>m 
(1805 — 6,) added very little to our knowledge of the Cyperaceae, 
excej^t the materials contributed by Richard. He described no 
new N. American species. Pursh was evidently not familiar with 
the plants of this ordc)-, although he records in his Flora 
(1814) most of the species described by preceding writers. 
His list comprises 119, only three or four of which are 
new. Nuttall does not profess to have studied the Cypera- 
ceae with particidar care, and in his Genera of North American 
plants, (1818) he merely gives a catalogue of the species 
enumerated in botanical works, amounting to 174. He, how- 
ever, described two new species of Carex- The late Dr. Muh- 
lenberg devoted much attention to the Cyperaceous plants and 
Grasses of this country, and his posthumous work entitled De- 
-scriptio uberior Graminum et Plantarum calamariarum, &c. con- 
tains faithful detailed descriptions, without diagnostic charac- 
ters, of 138 Cyperaceas. The latest general enumeration of 
this family is that of Sprengel, in his Systema Vegetabilium, 
(vol. 1, 1825, and vol. 3, 1826,) where we find recorded 178 
species as inhabiting North America. In my catalogue of the 
genera of North American plants published in the appendix to 
the American Edition of Lindley's Introduction to the Natural 
System, (1831) the number of Cyperaceae is 247, or one fif- 
