Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 5 August, 1903 No. 56 
THE AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVES OF LUZULA 
VERNALIS. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
ONE of the earliest flowering plants of New England is the Wood 
Rush which is known in our current manuals as Zuzula vernalis or 
Juncoides pilosum. The plant abounds in rich woods, mountain 
ravines and gullys, and in recent clearings in the interior districts 
of New England, New York and Eastern Canada, though it closely 
approaches the coast only in the northern portion of its range. And 
on account of its early flowering, in April and May, the species is 
familiar to many who later in the season devote little attention to the 
Juncaceae. 
Since the days of Muhlenberg,’ the American plant has been 
generally maintained as identical with the European species Zuzula 
vernalis, Lamarck & DeCandolle (Z. piosa, Willd., Juncus vernalis, 
Reichard, /. pilosus, var. a, L.), yet that remarkable student of our 
northern vegetation, Sir William Hooker, noted in 1839 that the 
American plant differs from the European, and he designated it as 
Luzula pilosa, B, with “floribus pallidis.”? Again, in 1890, Pro- 
fessor Franz Buchenau, though treating the American and European 
plants as essentially the same, commented on the tendency of the 
American plant to produce elongate stolons: * Bei den Exemplaren 
aus Nordamerika sah ich wiederholt eine ausläuferartige Streckung 
der grunständigen Triebe. Es bleibt zu beachten, ob dies in der 
neuen Welt häufiger vorkommt als in der alten." These two 
features, paler flowers and more elongate or stoloniferous base, are 
usually evident in the American plant, but they are accompanied by 
1 Muhl. Gram. 200 (1817). ? Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. ii. 188 (1839). 
? Buchenau, Mon. Junc. 85— Engl. Bot. Jahrb. xii. 85 (1890). 
