444 TRANS. OP THE ACAD. OF SCIENCE. 



American specimens are in nowise different from the Euro- 

 pean ones; the seeds are obovate, strongly apiculate, with a 

 very distinct raphe, and are irregularly and rather indistinctly 

 reticulated. 



10. J. Smithii, n. sp. : rhizomate? vaginis? foliis? caulibus 

 bipedalibus teretibus farctis siccis striulatis; paniculse laxse 

 subsimplicis pauciflorse spatha longissima ; sepalis aequilongis, 

 exterioribus acutatis, interioribus obtusis ; staminibus 6 ; cap- 

 sulse exsertse subglobosa3 acutae mucronatse (fuscatse) trilocu- 

 laris dissepimentis tenuissimis fragilibus; seminibus magnis 

 obovato-oblongis obtusis vix apiculatis irregulariter reticu- 

 latis. 



Pennsylvania, in a sphagnous swamp on Broad Mountain 

 near Pottsvillle, Schuylkill county, where Mr. Charles E. 

 Smith, of Philadelphia, for whom this species is named (J. 

 Smithii, Kunth, is the English J. tenuis), discovered it in 

 June, 1865, with nearly ripe fruit, and where he expects to 

 obtain more complete specimens in the coming season, as it 

 grows in a very accessible, but, thus far, little explored part of 

 Pennsylvania. We will then learn whether I am correct in 

 my surmise that it is a leaf-bearing species, closely allied to 

 J. setaceus. The question may even arise, whether our plant 

 is not the true J. setaceus of Rostkovius, as he credits it to 

 Pennsylvania, and, so far as I know, the plant we take to be 

 setaceus has not lately been found so far north. The figure 

 of Rostkovius is too poor to decide the question, but his 

 description is full enough to point to our setaceus; the "three- 

 leaved calyx" — i. e., the three bracts under the flower by 

 which he distinguishes his species from J. jiliformis — are 

 found in most flowers of both J. /Smithii and J. setaceus,tm(i 

 also in some other species, e. g., J. tenuis, but not in J. Jili- 

 formis; the lowest of those three bracts generally bears an 

 abortive bud in its axil, and has, therefore, another morpho- 

 logical value than the two upper ones. — The thin and wiry 

 stems before me are two feet high, eight or nine inches of 

 which belong to the spathe; the flowers are scarcely more 

 than one line long, not much more than half as long as those 

 of J. setaceus; the anthers had fallen off" and only the six 

 filaments remained ; the thick but sharply angled and pointed 

 capsule is light brown and shining; its valves seem to tear 

 away from the dissepiments when it opens. The seeds are 

 few and of large size, 0.4 line long, and irregularly ribbed 

 and reticulated. — The small flower, the form of the sepals, 

 the exsert, angular capsule, and the more elongated and 

 differently marked seeds distinguish it abundantly from the 

 next. 



11. J. setaceus, Rostk. Mon. June. 13, 1. 1, f. 2, is a reg- 

 ularly leaf-bearing species, though neither its author nor 



