ENGELMANN — NORTH AM. SPECIES OF JUNCUS. 455 



distinguished from all our other species by the purple, or, when 

 dry, red-brown color (already noticed by La Harpe) of its 

 three anthers, which usually exceed the outer sepals in 

 length ; it is further characterized by the acute outer sepals 

 being much shorter than the obtuse or, sometimes, mucronate 

 inner ones; by the ovate, obtuse ovary, with the almost 

 sessile, enclosed stigmas of the same length ; and the sub- 

 globose, obtuse, mucronulate capsule. The seeds are quite 

 variable in size and form, but always strongly pointed or 

 almost caudate and conspicuously ribbed, with few (4 or 5, 

 or, at most, 6) ribs visible, lineolate or, rarely, reticulate ; 

 they are commonly slender, obliquely lanceolate or fusiform, 

 but in Lindheirner's Fl. Tex. exsicc. 193, which has been 

 named J. heteranthos, they are quite short, ovate obtuse and 

 abruptly apiculate. The length of the seeds varies from 0.22 

 to 0.33 line, and their thickness from \ to \ of tlieir length. 

 — J. aristulatus, Michx. 1, 191, and J. aristatus, Pers. Syn. 1, 

 385, are exactly the same; J. biflorus, Ell. Sketch, 1, 407,* 

 and J. heteranthos, Nutt. PI. Arkans. in Trans. Am. Phil. 

 Soc. V. 153, are forms of the same with fewer flowers in the 

 head. J. cylindricus, Curtis, Sillim. Journ. 44, 83 ; Steud. 

 Glum. 2, 3l)4, is a form with heads elongated into spikes 6 

 lines long and 3 lines in diameter, sterile below, only the 

 uppermost flowers bearing fruit; outer sepals almost as long 

 as inner ones. 



We may distinguish the following forms : 



Var. a. vulgaris, H-3 feet high, with 5-8-flowered heads 

 in a compound or decompound panicle; the common form. 



Var. j3. biflorus, as tall as the former, with 2-3-flowered 

 heads in a decompound, often very large, panicle ; a southern 

 form, from Delaware, A. Commons, to Texas. 



Var. y. paucicapitatus, \~\\ feet high, with few (2-6 or 8) 

 larger 8-12-flowered heads; Long Branch, New Jersey, C. 

 W. Short, and elsewhere. 



32. J. pelocarpus, E. Mey. Synops. Luzul. p. 30; La 

 Harpe Monog. 124; Kunth En. 3, 333, non Auct. Amer. : 

 rhizomate horizontali tenui pallido; caulibus (spithameis pe- 

 dalibus et ultra) gracilibus teretiusculis erectis paucifoliis; 

 foliis teretiusculis indistincte nodulosis; paniculae decompo- 

 sitae laxre ramis pier um que elongatis secundifloris demum re- 

 curvis; floribus (parvis) singulis binisve saepe in gem mam 

 vel ramulum foliosum abortientibus ; sepalis oblongis obtusis, 

 exterioribus pier um que brevioribus rarius mucronatis stamina 

 6 et ovarium acuminatum in stylum breviorem abiens vix 

 superantibus ; antheris late linearibus filamento multo (duplo 



* The inner sepals, however, are not the shortest, as the usually so 

 careful anil reliable Elliott, probably by a lapse of the pen, says, but, as 

 in all the forms of this species, the longest. 



