midrib, ending in a shortish, stout, rather blunt point, or
awn. Stigmas 3, almost sessile. Fruit shorter than the
scales, roundish obovate, somewhat triangular, a little
compressed, greenish or tawny, smooth, all over finely besprinkled
with minute, brown, or reddish, depressed dots ;
its termination abrupt, without any beak. Seed not observed.
“ In general appearance this plant much resembles C. nutans
of Host, TVilld. v. 4. 299; but the fruit of that species
is ovate, tapering into a broad, deeply cloven, beak ;
and the scales of the barren as well as fertile catkins are
more or less awned, The fruit of ours rather agrees with
that of C. rigida, or recurra, and its habit perhaps withpulla,
globularis, and their allies; but the 2 very distinct barren
catkins, however exceptionable that character may occasionally
prove, oblige us to refer C. slictocarpa to the present
section, which its agreement, in some points, with hirta
andJiliformis may further justify. I have seen but a single
specimen.”
Such is the description of this plant in the English
Flora; and notwithstanding that its claims to the rank of
a species are supported by the authority of the eminent author
of that work, and my late father, I am fully satisfied
that it is not entitled to be regarded in any other light
than as an alpine form of C. recurva, the most variable of
all the Carices, with the exception perhaps of ccespitosa, to
which species the anguslifolia of Smith (probably identical
with the aquatilis (3 nardifolia of Wahlenberg,) must be reduced.—
D. Don.