to 
JUNCACEAL 
1. Rusw (Juncus). 
* Stems cylindrical, tapering to a point ; leaves reduced to sheaths 
1. Soft Rush (J. effiisus).—Stems soft, not furrowed, but faintly marked 
with lines ; cyme branched below the summit of the stem ; capsule blunt, a 
little shorter than the sepals ; rootstock perennial, and creeping. This is a 
common Rush of marshy lands, growing in clumps to the height of one or 
two feet, and having no leaves, or merely a few scales, which serve as a sheath 
to the stems. The stems are soft and pliant, of a pale green; and the brown 
cyme, which appears in July, is sometimes very spreading, at others nearly 
globose, and is usually about halfway down the leaf-like stem. The stems of 
both this and the next species are used for plaiting into mats and chair- 
bottoms, and their pith was once very extensively used as wicks for candles. 
Ere lights of a superior character had superseded the rush-lights, these were 
to be found in most households, and many cottagers used no candles save 
such as they could make from the rushes of the neighbouring wet meadow 
land ; but in few counties in our time are these home-made candles now in 
use, nor are rushes now gathered largely for sale. Even yet, however, in 
Norfolk, there exists an annual fair called a Rush Fair. This, which was 
formerly held at the village of Sprowston, near Norwich, was termed the 
Magdalen Fair; but in consequence of disorderly conduct in the frequenters 
of the place, that particular fair was done away, though a fair for the sale of 
rushes is yet held outside the Magdalen gates. A correspondent of the 
Gardener’s Chronicle estimated the quantity of rushes brought, a few years 
since, annually to this spot, at about eight hundred gross ; each gross con- 
taining twelve bundles, each bundle twelve whips, and each whip about fifty 
rushes. ‘The rushes are said by this writer to be gathered chiefly from the 
Happing and Flegg Hundreds, and to be collected mostly by women, who 
wade in the water of the bogs up to their waists to procure them. They 
are often assisted by their children in preparing them for sale. This is done 
by soaking, drying, and peeling them. 
But, in earlier days, rushes were of far greater importance in the house- 
hold economy of this kingdom, when sleeping apartments, dining-rooms, halls, 
theatres, and even the presence-chambers in palaces, as in that of Queen 
Elizabeth, were strewed with them. ‘That floors were occasionally paved 
with coloured tiles, some old illuminations serve to show ; and carpets, which 
were introduced in the thirteenth century, were used in the royal apartments 
of Edward IIL. ; but until carpets became general, the floors were mostly of 
board, and strewn with rushes. In an account of Thomas a Becket, pub- 
lished in. 1528, the writer says, ‘‘He was manfull in his household, for his 
hall was everie daye, in somer season, strewed with greene rushes, and in 
winter with clene hey, for to save the knyghtes’ clothes that sate on the floor, 
for defaute of place to sit on.” The floors in the ‘“ good old times” were 
not very frequently washed ; and that the rushes often concealed much that 
was offensive to the eye, we know from the disgust expressed by Erasmus, 
as well as by some English writers, at bones and other refuse being daily 
thrown from the table, while in few homes were the rushes daily or even 
