18 Rhodora [JANUARY 
It is not improbable that Dr. Sinnott’s station is identical with ours, 
the plant being excessively local and seen during three days of explora- 
tion only on one marsh, very near the Sinnott cottage in West Yar- 
mouth, at the outskirts of the village of Hyannis. 
In many characters resembling J. Roemerianus which, however, 
differs in the following essential points: more lax inflorescence with 
the heads only 2-6-flowered; perianth 3-3.5 mm. long, with acute 
sepals; filaments much shorter than the anthers; capsule only about 
equaling the perianth, obtuse and merely mucronate; placentae 
thickened; seed 0.75 mm. long, without caudate appendage at base. 
Juncus pervetus is one of the many remarkable species of world- 
wide affinities which are being so frequently discovered on the coastal 
area of southern New England and southeastern British America. 
It belongs to a unique subgenus, Junci thalassii of Buchenau, char- 
acterized by rigid texture, usually bladeless lower sheaths, culm-like 
rigid pungent cauline leaf with continuous pith (not septate), and 
very branching usually rigid inflorescences bearing the flowers in 
heads. Thus, to compare these plants with familiar examples, they 
combine the habital characteristics of J. balticus or J. effusus with 
those of J. militaris. This unique subgenus has, besides the newly 
discovered J. pervetus, six species all of saline or subsaline habitats and 
with a disrupted range which indicates that they are remnants of an 
ancient group. J. acutus L. or one of its varieties occurs in the Atlan- 
tic and Mediterranean regions of Europe and northern Africa, the 
coasts and steppes of southwestern Asia, the Atlantic Islands (Madeira, 
Azores, etc., and Bermuda), Cape of Good Hope, the coast of Cali- 
fornia, southern Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and the Islands of 
Juan Fernandez off the coast of Chile. J. Cooperi Engelm. is known 
only from saline regions of California and Nevada; J. Roemerianus 
only on the coast from Virginia to Texas; J. austerus Buchenau only 
from Chile; and J. Kraussii only from South Africa; while J. mari- 
timus Lam. is widely but interruptedly dispersed: on the Atlantic 
and Mediterranean coasts of Europe, southwestern Asia and north- 
eastern Africa, Cape of Good Hope, the Azores, Bermudas, Brazil, 
Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, with its only station on the 
North American coast on Coney Island, New York. 
It is thus evident that J. pervetus belongs in a subgenus of highly 
localized and presumably ancient species which were once widespread 
but are now reduced to scattered and often quite dissociated areas. 
That the plant is excessively local on Cape Cod will be evident from 
