ENGELMANN — NORTH AM. SPECIES OF JUNCUS. 493 



bus binis ternis rarius singulis; sepalis stamina fere duplo su- 

 perantibus; antheris oblongis filamento bis brevioribus; stylo 

 brevissimo cum stigmatibus brevibus incluso; capsula caly- 

 cem aequante vel vix excedente obtusa brevissime mucro- 

 nulata. 



Var. y. uniflorus : planta minima (^-1-pollicaris) ; floribus 

 bracteis 2 suffultis singulis plerumque 2-meribus (sepalis 4, 

 staminibus stigmatibus carpellisque binis). — J. saginoides, 

 p. 436. 



California, from the coast to the mountains; var. a. Yose- 

 mite Valley, alt. 4,000 feet, Bolander, Hb. n. 30; fl. July; 

 var. /?. Ukiah, Mendocino county, the same, Hb. n. 31, fl. 

 May, also "Fort Bragg, near the coast" ( 1-3-flowered) ; var. 

 y. Sierra Nevada, among mosses, Hillebrand; upper Tuolum- 

 ne River, Bolander, and in the lowlands, Anderson Valley, 

 the same, Hb. n. 32 ; fl. April and May. 



A curious and suggestive little plant, which must consider- 

 ably undermine our confidence in certain characters, con- 

 sidered of specific value, already shaken by the variations ot 

 other species from the same wonderful country ; it proves that 

 the singleness or plurality of flowers on the peduncle, the num- 

 ber of their parts, and, if my view is correct, even the propor- 

 tion of stamens and styles, are not sufficient to establish spe- 

 cific distinction. The first points are established beyond a 

 doubt by some of Mr. Bolander's specimens from the moun- 

 tain region, intermediate between p and y with one or two 

 flowers, and often with a dimerous and trimerous one in the 

 same inflorescence. Var. a may be considered a distinct 

 species by those that hold its differential characters to be of 

 paramount importance, but the similarity of the whole ap- 

 pearance of the plants and of most of their parts, and, above 

 all, the absolute identity of the well-marked seeds, convince 

 me that it must be united with the others, and that eventu- 

 ally intermediate forms will dispel all doubts. 



Only the small dimerous form was known to me when the 

 first part of this paper went to press, and was then considered 

 as the type of a distinct subgenus, Juncellus, allied through 

 its single-flowered stems to Bostkovia, and distinguished by 

 its dimerism from any other known Jimcus (see pp. 426, 428 

 & 436). Mr. Bolander, however, has since discovered other 

 forms of this plant which bear trimerous flowers, thus assimi- 

 lating it to the ordinary form of Junci and more particularly 

 to the European J. capitatus, and destroying the subgenus 

 Juncellus. I am now convinced that it must be placed with 

 its European ally near J. marginatus, in the section Grami- 

 nei, the dimerous variety constituting an anomaly not other- 

 wise observed in this genus, but again found among the 

 allied liestiacea} and Eriocaulonece, where dimerism and 



