4 JUNCACEAS 
was also used for candles, as it still is for making little baskets and children’s 
toys. Rushes are, in country places, often twisted together to tie hurdles 
and other rustic implements; and the rushes of some countries are 
commonly made into ropes and cables, while the earliest cordage was 
probably made of them. Professor Burnett says that sailors call cables 
junks, as juncus itself is a derivation of jungo, to bind or join together. 
Most persons, whose early days were spent in the country, have woven them 
into baskets ; and many a country boy could say with Clare— 
** And on this bank how happy have I felt, 
When here I sat and murmur’d nameless songs, 
And, with the shepherd-boy and neat-herd, knelt 
Upon yon rush-beds, plaiting whips and thongs !” 
The French call the Rush Jone, and their cream-cheese is called jonchée, 
because served up on its little frail of green rushes. The Germans term the 
plant Binse. A large species of Rush is cultivated in Japan entirely for 
making floor-mats ; and mats and chair-bottoms were formerly made in this 
country of our Common Rushes ; but the Lake Club Rush (Scirpus lacustris) 
is now used for that purpose, and is much better adapted for it. 
3. Hard Rush (J. glaicus).—Stem very rigid, and strongly marked 
with lines; cyme loose, much branched, erect ; capsule oblong, pointed, 
rather shorter than the sepals ; rootstock creeping, black. This Rush is 
about two feet high, its stems tough, rigid, and glaucous, with purplish 
sheaths at the base. It bears, in July, a panicle of greenish-brown flowers, 
with a broad green line down the middle of each segment of the perianth ; 
and six stamens. It is a common plant by ditches, on moory grounds and 
moist waysides, and is sometimes very troublesome on wet lands used for 
pasture. It is gathered in Holland while green, and afterwards used by 
gardeners in tying trees and shrubs. 
A plant, described as J. diffusus, is thought by some botanists to be a 
hybrid between glaucus and effusus. It is a stiff hard Rush, differing in its 
much smaller capsule ; which, instead of being oblong with a spinous point, 
is inversely egg-shaped and blunt; its stem, too, is softer and more faintly 
marked with lines, It is found growing with the last two species, but is 
apparently rare. 
4, Baltic Rush, or Coast Rush (J. bdllicus).—Stem rigid, naked, 
pungent, straight, acute ; cyme erect, branched, few-flowered ; bracts shorter 
than the panicle ; capsule oblong, blunt, spine-tipped ; rootstock creeping. 
The stems of this Rush are about a foot high, smooth, with brown scales at 
the base. It bears, in July and August, its dense panicle near the top, con- 
sisting of dark brown flowers, with a pale line down each segment. It was 
discovered by Mr. Drummond on the sands of Barry, near Dundee, and has 
since been found on sandy sea-shores, and on the banks of rivers not far from 
the sea, in several parts of Scotland. Its root creeps extensively. 
5. Thread Rush, or Slender Rush (J. filiférmis). — Stem naked, 
slender, nodding ; eyme few-flowered ; capsule nearly globular, spine-tipped ; 
rootstock forming a loose tuft. This species is remarkable for its thread- 
like stems, which, in August, bear their panicles of greenish-brown flowers 
on one side, far below the middle. This Rush is very slender and _ pliant, 
