2 i8 ROUND THE YEAR 



Andromeda and the Cranberry furnish good examples 

 of the rolled-up leaves, which we thought appropriate 

 to an unusually dry soil. 



The common Rush (Juncus) is notoriously a native 

 of wet places, and is often found growing in pools 

 which never dry up. Yet it has some features in 

 common with what are called the " Xerophilous " 

 plants, which live in places subject to drought, and 

 which are specially protected against undue evapora- 

 tion from the leaves. The Rush has its leaves reduced 

 to sheaths, which invest the base of the stem. The 

 stem takes upon itself the functions of a leaf, turns 

 green, and is provided with stomates. It is a cylinder, 

 which of all much elongated solid figures, exposes the 

 smallest surface in proportion to its volume ; it is 

 nearly upright, and therefore little liable to be scorched 

 by the noon-day sun. If we were to reason from 

 herbarium specimens only as to the habits of this 

 plant (a most dangerous form of speculation) we 

 might easily set down the Rush as a native of some 

 desert tract, which had suppressed its leaves to escape 

 perishing by drought. 



The Rush, like Ling and Crowberry, has a very dry 

 stem. The interior is filled with pith, which greatly 

 exceeds in bulk the green layer on the outside. It 

 would seem that moorland plants are liable to suffer 

 from too much water as well as from too little. This 

 is pretty certainly the case with the Rush, which grows 

 in the wettest of the moor. 



Goebel (*) has described for us in a very interesting 



1 Pflanzenbiologische Schilderungen. IV. " Die Vegetation 

 der Venezolanischen Paramos." 



