1904] Bicknell, — Juncus aristulatus 175 



the species occurs, but in less vigorous development, at Van Cort- 

 landt, N. Y., not very many miles from the Connecticut State line. 



No practised eye which has once rested on this plant in life will 

 hesitate to accept it as entirely distinct from Juncus margifiaius 

 Rostk., of which it was long supposed to be only a variety, and there 

 is no need of here rehearsing the characters that give it individuality. 

 But Mr. Fernald, referring particularly to the Nantucket specimens, 

 calls my attention to a character of the species in distinction from 

 Juncus fnarginatus which seems to have been generally overlooked. 

 Dr. Small in his Flora of the Southeastern United States has 

 described the larger stamens of /. aristulatus. Mr. Fernald 

 observes that these larger exerted stamens with their darkened 

 anthers are persistent and conspicuous in fruit when the small 

 included stamens of /. fnarginatus are usually quite shrivelled and 

 obscure. Something of this same difference in size and persistence 

 is also seen in the styles of the two plants. In the Nantucket speci- 

 mens these characters are very noticeable, but they are probably not 

 always obvious, since I find them much less evident in certain 

 specimens collected on Long Island. 



Some interesting and rather pronounced differences between the 

 seeds of the two plants may here be noted. As seen en masse, 

 sprinkled in hundreds in the sheets where the fully matured plants 

 have lain, those of/, marginatus are of a dull cinnamon-brown color, 

 those of /. aristulatus being of a rather bright brownish-orange in 

 marked contrast. Those of /. aristulatus are the more transparent, 

 and though variable are mostly of a very different shape — narrowly 

 oblong rather than oval or short oblong, instead of straight often dis- 

 tinctly curved, sometimes oppositely so at either end, more tapering 

 both ways and distinctly apiculate or short-tailed, sometimes, indeed, 

 with one tailed end fully one quarter the length of the body of the 

 seed itself ; in /. marginatus the seeds are mostly somewhat blunt, 

 indistinctly apiculate on one end and not more than short apiculate 

 on the other; they are also shorter than those of /. aristulatus, 

 sometimes not more than half as long. These differences have 

 proved to be very constant in the specimens I have been able to 

 compare. 



WooDMERE, Long Island. 



