North American Cyperacea. 313 
Obs. Differs from the southern variety in the thicker culm, 
'longer and firmer bristles and more oblong nut, but resembles 
it in the tendency to become proliferous. I have seen it with 
spikes bearing raore than 25 flowers, but the usual number is 
from 15 to 20. The taller specimens resemble E. intermedia, 
■but it is easily distinguished from that plant by the form of the 
-siut. 
IS. Eleochaiiis pygm^a. 
Culms setaceous, much compressed and sulcate (dwarf) ; 
spike ovate, compressed, 3 — 6-flower^d ; scales ovate ; bristles 
longer than the nut, retrorsely scabrous ; nut ovate, acutely 
triangular, smooth and shining; tubercle very minute, con- 
'iluent. 
Scirpus pusiUus, Vdhl, ernun. 2. p. 246? ; Pursh,fi. 1. p. 54 ; Torr. ! 
fi. p. 46; Ram. ^- Schult. sysl. 2. p. 124? (excluding tJie synonym of 
Michx. erroneously quoted " <S. cajnliaris.") 
'S. capillaceus, Elliott, sT^.l. p. 75. (exci. sj-n. Midi.v.) 
Culms 1 — 2 indies high, often destitute of spikes at tits sutilmit, aed 
then appearing like subulate leaves. Spike a line and a half in length, 
broadly ovate, seldom perfecting more than one or tsvo nuts. Lowest scale 
-■empty, very obtuse ; the others more or less acute, especially when old. 
Bristles 6, whitish, slender. Nut acute at each end, grayish white. 
tubercle extremely -minute, forming merely a triangular apex to the 
nut. 
Hab. Salt marshes, and along the banks of rivers where 
the salt water reaches ; growing in patches. Near New Yoric, 
and on the sea coast of New Jersey. September. 
Obs. This species is frequently confounded with E. acicu- 
laris, a dwarf variety of which it greatly resembles ; but it differs 
entirely from that species in its triquetrous, smooth (not oblong 
and ribbed) nut. Some of our botanists have supposed it to 
be the Scirpiis capilluceiis of iSIichaux, but I have ascertain- 
ed his plant to be E. aciadaris. Whetlier the synonym of 
