ENGELMANN — NORTH AM. SPECIES OF JUNCUS. 477 



the diameter of the seed, often only half as long; 7-8 ribs 

 visible, usually very distinct, with cross-striation and an ap- 

 proach to reticulation. — A slender form is distributed in Hb. 

 n. 80 and 81, a more rigid one is n. 82, but both run to- 

 gether. 



Var. J is the most polymorphous of all the forms of this 

 species; it is stouter, taller and more rigid than the other 

 varieties, and thus approaches more nearly to the following 

 species. The panicle 3-6, or sometimes as much as 9 or 10, 

 inches long, and 2-5-7 inches wide, with somewhat spreading 

 but rarely horizontal rays, is either much branched and bears 

 smaller (5-8-20-flowered) but more numerous heads, or it is 

 more simple, with larger (30-40 and in some Delaware speci- 

 mens even 80 or 90-flowered) and fewer heads; it is usually 

 loose, but sometimes quite compact ; specimens from South 

 Carolina, lib. norm. 85, have large green heads in a de- 

 compound panicle. Flowers l|-2 lines long, greenish, at 

 last with the capsules light brown ; sepals generally 1-3 

 or sometimes 5-nerved, very acute, or rarely somewhat ob- 

 tusish, usually quite unequal, or, as an exception, nearly equal 

 in length ; capsule prismatic, and usually obtusish and mu- 

 cronate, as long as or mostly longer than the sepals, some- 

 times acutate and elongate. Seeds slender, and either large 

 with shorter appendages, or smaller and thinner and with 

 longer tails; the former are 0.30-0.46 line long, length equal 

 to 2 1 diameters, with the appendages 0.60-1.00 line long; 

 the more slender seeds are of the same total length, but the 

 body of the seed is a little shorter (0.25-0.35 line long) and 

 its length is equal to nearly 3 diameters; 8-10 or 15 ribs or 

 strias are visible on one side of the seed. — A curious form 

 with branched heads, the single branches being elongated into 

 spikes, was found by A. Commons near Salisbury, Maryland 

 (see p. 427). Mr. Kavenel has collected this species in South 

 Carolina with often more than 3 stamens; Hb. n. 87. — This 

 variety is the plant which by most American botanists has 

 been taken for Meyer's J. paradoxus; but I have shown above 

 (p. 462) that Meyer's plant, sepalis "exterioribiis longioribus? 

 must be what I have designated as J. acuminatus, var. legiti- 

 fflws, and cannot have been meant for our plant, the exterior 

 sepals of which are shorter. Meyer's name was not given in 

 reference to the curious seeds, but to the frequent foliaeeous- 

 excrescences of his plant, which seem to be quite rare, if not 

 unknown, in the present species. 



45. J. caudatus, Chapm. Fl. S.St. 495: caulibus (2-3. 

 pedalibus) cnespitosis teretibus foliisque rigidis L*evibus; pa- 

 niculae eompositce seu decomposite ramis suberectis; capitulis 

 pauci-(2-5)floiis; sepalis lanceolatis 3-5 nerviis, exterioribus 

 brevibus acutis stamina 3-6 jequantibus, interioribussubulatis 



