ILLUSTRATIONS. 125 



parts of the southern. Another form of the same species, 

 called Juncus conglomerate, has the clusters dense and com- 

 pact, so as to form roundish heads. Both forms are used for 

 platting into mats and chair-bottoms, and the pith of their 

 stems is formed into wicks for candles. 



The Flowering Rush,* belonging to the Butomaceous fa- 

 mily, which it typifies, is of a more ornamental character than 

 the preceding ; indeed, it has truly been said to be a greater 

 adornment to the banks of our rivers than any other British 

 wild-flower. It is a perennial aquatic herb, with a thick 

 creeping rootstock, from which spring up the clusters of long, 

 erect, triangular, sedge-like leaves, which are broad and 

 sheathing at the base. The flower-stem is stout, leafless, rush- 

 like, three or four feet high, bearing a large, simple umbel of 

 numerous showy pale rose-coloured or pinkish flowers, and 

 having an involucre of three lance-shaped bracts at the base 

 of the umbel. The flowers are nearly an inch in diameter, 

 the perianth formed of six ovate nearly equal spreading 

 segments ; within this are nine stamens, and, in the centre, 

 six erect carpels, connected below, tapered above into short 

 styles, and each containing numerous small seeds. It is a 

 very handsome aquatic plant, quite deserving of cultivation. 

 By some authorities, the family to which it is referred is in- 

 cluded in that of the Alismaceous plants. 



The beautiful family of Iridaceous plants, another of the 

 regular-flowered groups of Monocotyledons to which allusion 

 has already been made, is further illustrated by the Yellow 

 Flag,f found abundantly in marshy places and by the sides of 

 watercourses. There, as Shelley writes, " where the embower- 

 ing trees recede, and leave a little space of green expanse, the 

 cove is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers for ever 



* Butomus umbellatus Plate 21 A. 

 f Iris Pseud-acorus Plate 20 D. 



