360 Holm : Juncus repens Michx. 



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much and it is not uncommon to find only a few sessile flowers 

 developed among purely vegetative shoots ; however, in no in- 

 stance have we been able to detect flowers that were partly trans- 

 formed into leaves. The flower-bearing stem consists of several, 

 four or five, stretched internodes, while in the prostrate, vegeta- 

 tive shoots the basal intern ode is commonly the only one that is 

 visible ; specimens in which two or three very distinct internodes 

 are developed are not infrequent however. When two or three 

 long internodes are developed they alternate with a series of short 

 ones each bearing a leaf with axillary shoots. In this manner the 

 species well deserves to be termed as " repeatedly proliferous." 

 None of these vegetative shoots become freed, however, from the 

 * mother-plant so as to form new individuals in any other way than 

 by the gradual dying away of the long stem internode. Hence * 

 the vegetative propagation is different from what Buchenau has 

 described as characteristic of Jiincus pdocarpns, where similar 

 small shoots develop In the inflorescence but drop off, producing 



new individuals. 



By examining the flower-bearing stems, we find them similar 

 to the vegetative branches, very strongly compressed but narrower, 

 and they occur as axillary or as terminal ; in the first case, they 



■ 



begin with aperlphyllon, bicarinate and membranous. The flower- • 

 bearing stems are, furthermore, leafy, possessing usually two 

 or three leaves at the base and several some distance above, each 



M 



supporting a minor inflorescence of a few, nearly sessile flowers, 

 borne on a peduncle of various length. Contrary to our expecta- 

 tion these axillary peduncles are destitute of prophylla at their 

 base even in cases where they have attained a considerable length. 

 In passing to examine the leaves, our plant demonstrates the 

 singular fact of possessing "distichous leaves with compressed 

 sheaths and broadly linear, flat blades, which turn the one margin 

 towards the stem." Viewed superficially the leaf-blades remind 

 one of the ensiform leaves of Iris, but it is readily seen by closer 

 examination that it is merely a twisting of the blade, that has taken 

 place. The flattened stems correspond well with this peculiar 

 structure of the leaf-sheaths and with the partial twist of the 

 blade. It is a structure which we have, furthermore, observed in 

 one of our native species of F'unbristylis, F. aittuninaUs R. & S., 



