TRIANDRIA— MONOGYNIA. Eleocharis. 63 



articulation in the sfijlc ; because, as he justly says, an 

 actual joint would intercq^t the impreojnation. But there 

 is no question of any such thing. There is nothing ana- 

 logous, in the vegetable body, to the joints in the limbs 

 of animals. The term is used for a certain point where, 

 after the original functions of the part have been per- 

 formed, a solution of continuity takes place ; as in the 

 rachis, or main stalk, of the spiked grasses, which becomes 

 very brittle at each joint, when the seeds ripen, though 

 originally continuous. The same may be observed in the 

 stalks of leaves, and of fruits.J 

 Water plants with simple leafless steins, sheathed at the 

 base, and a solitary, terminal, erect, leafless spike. 



1. Yi, palustris. Creeping Spike-rush. 



Stem round. Root creeping. Stigmas two. Seed lenti- 

 cular, most convex at one side. 



Scirpus palustris. Linn. Sp. PL 70. HUM. t'. 1 . 29 1 . Vahl Enum, 



V. 2. 247. Ft. Br. 48. Engl. Bot. v. 2. ^.131. Rel. Rudb. 27. 



f. 2. Don H. Br. 126. Hook. Scot. 18. Fl. Dan. t. 2/3. Poit. 



^ Turp. Par. t. 59. Leers 10. t. l.f. 3. Schrad. Germ. v. 1. 127. 



Walilenb.Lapp. 14. 



S. n. 1336. Hall Hist. v. 2. 177. 



S. equiseti capitulo majori, RaiiSyn. 429. Scheuchz. Agr.360. 



Juncus equiseti capitulis. Beuih. Theatr. 186./. 



J. minor, capitulis equiseti. Ger. Em. 35./. 1631. 



Juncellus cyperoides, capitulo simplici, Loes. Pruss. 131. ^36- 



In ditches, rivulets, and boggy ground, very common. 



Perennial. June, July. 



The root sends out horizontal runners, which fix themselves here 

 and there by fibrous radicles. Stems many together, erect, as 

 thick as a crow's quill, smooth, from 6 to 12 inches high, each 

 invested at the base with 2 or 3 tight, entire, cylindrical, reddish 

 sheaths. Leaves x\one. iS)327te ovate-oblong, acute, half an inch 

 long. Glumes brown, bluntly keeled, acute, encompassed with 

 a pale membranous border, and a little expanded while in flower. 

 Stam 3, capillary. Anth. linear, bufl^-coloured, loosely spread- 

 ing. Germ, ovate. iS^/^m«5 certainly but 2, downy, spreading, the 

 length of the style, whose base is greatly dilated, and ovate, but 

 its point of attachment with the germen is not thicker than the 

 upper part of the style. Seed yellow, polished, roundish-obovate, 

 tumid at each side, but most on that next the glume, crowned 

 by the brown, wrinkled, compressed, permanent, unpolished base 

 of the style, and subtended by from 3 to 5 bristles, about its 

 own length, rough with deflexed teeth. Three stigmas are very 

 erroneously represented, in Engl. Bot. this species not being 

 then well distinguished from the following. 



