258 NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF JUNCUS. 
brevioribus inclusis ; capsula prismatica mucronata seu acutata uniloculari sepala equante seu excedente ; seminibus 
minutis obovatis seu oblanceolatis utrumque acutis areis lineolatis reticuiatis. 
a. legitimus: caulibus (1—-2-pedalibus) erectis gracilioribus; panicula simplici composita vel decomposita 
patula ; coitus pluri- seu multi-(5-12-30-50) floris demum e fusco stramineis ; floribus majoribus ; sepalis equalibus 
seu raro exterioribus paulo longioribus Fee prismaticam obtusiusculam mucronatam fere scyusintilve ; antheris 
filamento multo brevioribus ; ovario ovato acuto. —J. acuwminatus, Michx. 1, 192; La Harpe, 136; Elliott, 1, 409? 
Kunth, 3, 335, non Auct. Am. plur. J. st eae E. Mey. June. 31, non ee ek, J. paradoxzus, E, Mey. 1. c. 30; 
La Harpe, 141; Kunth, 3, 341; non Auct. Am. J. fraternus, Kunth, 3, 340. J. debilis, Gray 1. ¢. ex parte. 
Pondii, Wood Bot. (1861) 724. 
Var. 8. debilis: caulibus (spithameis sesquipedalibus) debilibus erectis seu decumbentibus radicantibusve ; capi- 
tulis pauci-(3—6)floris ; floribus minoribus pallidis ; capsula acuta breviter mucronata exserta. —J. debilis, Gray, Man. 
ed. 2, 481. 
ar. y. diffusissimus: caulibus (bipedalibus ultra) erectis panicule ultradecomposite ramis numerosissimis fili- 
formibus elongatis ; capitulis pauci-(3-7)floris pallidis ; sepalis angustioribus stamina fere duplo superantibus; ovario 
acutato ; capsula lineari-lanceolata acuta calyci fere duplo longiore. — J. diffusissimus, Buckley, Pl. Tex. 1. ¢. p. 9. 
Var. 8. robustus: caulibus elatis (2—4-pedalibus) erectis foliisque elongatis robustis ; panicula ultradecomposita 
patula ; capitulis pauci-(5-8)floris stramineo-fuscis; floribus minoribus; antheris filamenta equantibus; capsula 
ovata obtusa mucronata fusca sepala acutissima paulo excedente. 
All over the States, from Massachusetts southward to the Rio Grande, and westward to Missouri. Var. a. is the 
most common form found in the whole territory indicated ; var. 8. I have only seen from New Jersey, C. mith ; 
Pennsylvania, Schweinitz, Moser, Porter; Ohio, Lea ; Kentucky, Short (the original of Gray’s J. debilis) ; ; Missin 
E. Hilgard, and South Carolina, Ravenel, but it is probably more extensively distributed ; var. y., northw n Texas, 
Lincecum, Buckley ; var. 8., in the Mississippi Valley from Illinois, Geyer, Mead, Vasey, to Missouri! and a poe 
J. Hale. — All the forms of this species flower early in the season, according to latitude, from April to June, and shed 
their numerous seeds from May to July. 
Through the kind liberality of Profs. Roeper of Rostock and Decaisne of Paris I have now had the oppor- [464] 
tunity of examining and comparing fragments of Lamarck’s original J. pallescens and Michaux’s J. acuminatus. 
The former’s name refers, as Prof. Roeper informs me, to two poor (more suo) specimens collected by Commerson 
near Buenos-Ayres ; the heads are apparently 5-flowered ; the flowers, not yet open, are similar to those of our plant, 
but are 6-androus and pedicelled. Lamarck gives North as well as South America as the habitat of his plant, but adds 
that his specimens are those above noticed; his reference to North America is evidently based on quotations from 
Pluk. Alm. t. 92, f. 9, and Moris. Hist. 3, sect. 8, t. 9, f. 5, which both represent rather something like J. tenwis. 
Meyer was undoubtedly misled by these references to North American localities to substitute Lamarck’s for Michaux’s 
name. La H , p- 136, suggests, probably with more justice, that Commerson’s plant is an immature J. Dombeyanus. 
Michaux’s specimen, collected in South Carolina, is a rather small-flowered form of var. legitimus, such as often occur 
southeastward (comp. Hb. norm. 58), with only 5 flowers in a head (Michaux says 3 flowers), the (unripe) capsule 
being about as long as the sepals. The other synonyms of the older authors have not given any less trouble, princi- 
pally because both Meyer and Kunth have described their J. paradoxus and J. fraternus with outer sepals exceeding 
the inner ones (a very rare case in any form of J. acuminatus) ; and in the former the capsule was said to be longer, 
in the latter shorter, than the sepals; neither mentions the seeds. Having been able to examine a fragment of 
Kunth’s plant, which had been sent from Boston by Boott, and is preserved in the Royal Herbarium at Berlin, I can 
most positively assert that it is a scanty-flowered form of what I have called var. legitimus, with the outer sepals very 
slightly exceeding the inner ones, and with a not fully ripe capsule about the length of the inner sepals. Meyer's J. 
paradoxus is more difficult to identify, because the original specimen does not exist in his herbarium ; he had examined 
it, as a memorandum indicates, in Hb. Lehmann, to whom it was given by Willdenow under the name of J. polycepha- 
lus, and preserved only a drawing of it and a rough sketch of some details. There are, however, in the sheet super- 
scribed by Meyer J. paradoxus, ten dried specimens from different parts of the United States and Mexico, perhaps 
rather uncritically thrown together; flowers of only one of them have been sent to me, and they belong to the ordinary 
form of var. legitimus. The figure of the original type represents a plant with a decompound panicle about 4 inches 
high and as wide, with numerous few-flowered heads, and leafy excrescences from some of them; the other 
sketch shows an acute capsule exceeding the lanceolate-subulate sepals of equal length, and the inside of a valve [465] 
with a parietal placenta on the lower half. Meyer, therefore, had seen the ripe fruit, and could not have failed 
to see some seeds, unless all had fallen out ; but as they did not differ from the common form of Juncus seeds, he did 
not mention their shape, which he would Sertainky have done, and would have placed the plant in his second section, 
Marsippospermum, had they been at all appendiculate, as they are in the plant with us heretofore taken for J. para- 
doxus, Besides this, the latter, which is enumerated here as J. Canadensis, var. longecaudatus, never has the inner 
sepals shorter, but almost always longer, than the outer ones, and has rarely, if ever, as far as I am informed, those 
