Juncoides to which belong altogether forty species. These 
bloom in spring. 
Juncus effusus grows in almost all countries of the 
globe, stygius is alpine or arctic, balticus and gerardi grow 
principally near salt water.. As a rule the members of this 
family grow in wet or moist places, but some species grow 
only where it is dry; tenuis, a small, wiry species, is found 
among the grass and especially on old roads and cowpaths. 
The earliest description which I have found of the 
Junci, except the descriptions of Linnaeus in the Genera 
Plantarum, is the one by Engelmann—an elaborate mon- 
ograph published in the Transactions of the St. Louis 
Academy of Science, 1866-68. In the introduction to this 
Dr. Engelmann says: 
“The difficulty I found in arranging the species of 
Juncus of my own herbarium, the doubts in which the’ 
authors left me by incomplete and unsatisfactory descrip- 
tions, and by confusion in the names and synonyms, the 
want of confidence which all my correspondents, even such 
as had paid a good deal of close attention to it, seemed to 
place in themselves and their own judgment when this 
genus was under discussion—all this induced me to enter 
upon a critical study of our Junci.” 
Liberal contributions of specimens and observations 
from all over the country and from Europe helped in this 
work. He was able to examine over a thousand specimens; 
he made careful dissections and drawings of flowers and 
fruits, and his monograph includes descriptions of plant 
characters, a key to the classification, notes on geographical 
distribution, etc. 
A later monograph is that of the order by Dr. Buchenan 
in Engler and Prantl, while the text for Juncaceae in Britton 
and Brown is by F. C. Coville, head of the department of 
botany at the National Museum. 
The classification of the Junci is according to characters 
taken from the organs of vegetation, from the stem and 
leaves and inflorescence, more than from differences in the 
flowers and fruits. The types are characterized also by dif- 
