178 HEXANDRIA--MONOGYNIA. Luciola. 



roundish, with a tumid crest^ various in shape and posi- 

 tion. 



Roots fibrous or creeping, perennial. Stem leafy, simple. 

 Leaves grassy, more or less fringed with long irregular 

 hairs ; often serrated, callous at the point. Particle many- 

 flowered, cymose, or somewhat spiked. FL brownish, 

 with 2 membranous close bracteas to each. Caps, gene- 

 rally shining. 



The establishment of this genus, so different in habit from 

 Juncus, and now so well determined by the character of 

 its capsule, and the number as well as insertion of its 

 seed^, can hardly be controverted. I only beg leave to 

 make an indispensable correction in the orthography of 

 the name. The hairy heads of flowers, wet with dew, 

 and sparkling by moonlight, gave the elegant Italians an 

 idea of their lucciole, or glow-worms ; sometimes written 

 luzziole, but this is a provincial corruption. Hence how- 

 ever John Bauhin got the name of Gramen luzulce, or 

 Glow-worm Grass, for he never called it Luzula, which 

 would have been the same as actually calling it a Glow- 

 worm. From a similar derivation, [liiceo, to shine,) a La- 

 tin name, Luciola, has been given to the Adder' s-tongue, 

 Ophioglossum ; whether from the shining hue of that 

 plant, or rather perhaps from its resemblance in form to 

 a lamp with its wick, is of no consequence. The name 

 so applied by Gesner and Dodonaeus, extant in Ambro- 

 sinus, and even in Ainsworth, is now supei'fluous for the 

 Ophioglossum, and is in fact the Latin of Luzula, this lat- 

 ter being altogether corrupt, neither Latin nor good Ita- 

 lian. 



1 . L. pilosa. Broad-leaved Hairy Wood-rush. 

 Panicle cymose, widely spreading and reflexed. Flowers 

 solitary. Capsule pointless. Crest of the seeds hooked. 



Luzula pilosa. Willd. Enum. 393. Bicheno Tr. of L. Soc. 329. t. 9. 



/ 1. Hook. Scot. 110. Forst. Tonbr. 44. 

 Juncus pilosus. Lin7i. Sp. PI. 468. Willd. v. 2. 21 6. FL Br. 384. 

 Engl. Bot.v.W.t. 736. Curt. Lond.fasc.b.t.2b. Leers 90. tA3, 



f. 10. 

 J. vernalis. Ehrh. Calam. 109. Hoffm. Germ, for 1800. 168. 

 J. n. 1325. Hall. Hist. v. 2. 1/2. 

 Gramen nemorosum hirsutum vulgare. Rail SynAl6. 

 G. hirsutum latifolium majus. Bauh.Pin.7. Moris, v.3,225. secLS. 



t.9.f\. 

 G. hirsutum latifolium minus. Scheuchz. Jgr, 315. 



