FLOWERING PLANTS. 181 
Juncus acutus, L. Great Sea Rush. 
Native. First record: Gosselin, 1815. 
Local and rare. Frequent on the sand-hills and in the neighbour- 
ing sandy fields from the eastern end of Vazon Bay to Grandes 
Rocques and Pulias. Marshy fields near the Vale pond. Several 
clumps at the foot of the cliffs at Petit Port. 
Juncus effusus, L. Soft Rush. 
Native. First record: Gosselin, 1815. 
Very common throughout the island in wet and marshy places. 
In the olden time it was customary at ceremonial entertainments 
to strew the floor with rushes: they were also scattered along the 
way by which processions were to pass on state occasions: hence 
the call for ‘ more rushes’ in Henry ZV., Part II., v. 5. 
Juncus conglomeratus, L. Common Rush. 
Native. First record: Babington, 1839. 
Although termed the Common Rush, this species is much less 
plentiful than the preceding, and seems more confined to the low- 
lands. It grows in similar situations. 
The pith of the stems was formerly used to make wicks for small 
candles called rushlights, and White of Selborne gives a full account 
of the method of making them in his day, showing how ‘a poor 
family will enjoy five and a half hours of comfortable light for a 
farthing.’ See Letter xxvi. (November 1, 1775). Gardiner, in his 
flora of Forfar, says that in Scotland ‘ the cvusey, with its whale oil 
and rashy-wick, is still [1848] extensively used.’ Precisely the same 
kind of small lamp as the Scotch crwsey was employed in farmhouses 
in Guernsey down to the middle of the century: fish oil was burnt, 
the wicks were made of rush-pith, and the lamp itself was called in 
the patois a craucé. 
(Juncus glaucus, Sibth., is noted in AZ. Sarn, as being common 
in Guernsey, but this is an error. The plant does not occur in the 
island at all at the present time, nor has any one seen it during the 
last twenty years, and it is not mentioned in Gosselin’s list. But it 
is common in Alderney.) 
Juncus capitatus, Weig. Capitate Rush. 
Native. First record: Symons, 1798. 
Rare. Occurs in many places on the cliffs at St. Martin’s and 
the Forest, as well as all over Lancresse Common ; but the patches 
are so small that they are easily overlooked. This diminutive Rush 
was added to the British Flora a century ago on the authority of 
William Hudson, author of the Mora Anglica, who found it in 
Guernsey. The original record occurs in Symons’ Synopsis Plantarum 
Insulis Britannicis (1798), and runs as follows: ‘ Habitat in insula 
