JUXCACE^. 13 



GENUS 7/.-JUNCUS. Linn. 



Perianth 6-lcaved ; perianth leaves scarious, brown or green and 

 bro^^'n or greenish white. Stamens 6, morerarely 3. Capsule 3-celled, 

 or rarely l-celled from the dissepiments not reaching to the apex, 

 3-valved. Seeds numerous, attached to the partition in the middle of 

 each of the valves. 



Glabrous perennial or annual herbs, ^\^th the leaves reduced to 

 sheaths or fistulous or xevy slender and often somewhat rigid. In- 

 florescence in a terminal umbellato-corymbose panicle, with a very 

 short primary rachis and long lower branches, or sometimes contracted 

 into a head. 



The name of this genus comes from the ■wovijungo, I join; some of the species 

 being used for traces, and also for many purposes when joined or plaited together. 



Section I.— STYGII. Fries. 



Perennial. Stem solid. Leaves slender, chiefly radical, or more 

 rarely distributed over the stem, narrowly linear, solid or fistulose, not 

 articulated. Flowers few, collected into a terminal head, sometimes 

 pseudo-lateral from the lowest bract forming an apparent continuation 

 of the stem, occasionally with a second head below the terminal one. 

 Seeds with the testa produced into an appendage at both base and apex. 



SPECIES I.-J UNCUS TRIFIDUS. Linn. 



Plate MDLIV. 



Eeich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. IX. Tab. CCCXCIV. Fig. 869. 

 BUM, n. Grail, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 673. 



Densely ca^spitose. Branches of the rootstock elongate, producing 

 a number of stems closely placed one before the other. Stems 

 numerous, slender, wiry, with several sheaths at the base; the lower 

 sheaths leafless, the uppermost with a short leafy point, above which 

 the stem is leafless except at the apex, where a short distance below 

 the flowers there is a single sheathing filiform leaf, with laciniate 

 auricles at the base of the lamina. Inflorescence a single head with 2 

 long filiform foUaceous bracts resembling the stem leaf and very greatly 

 exceeding the flowers, rarely there is a second a.xillary head or solitary 

 flower in the axil of the uppermost stem leaf. Flowers usually 3, 

 more rarely 1 or 2 in the head. Perianth leaves lanceolate, acuminate, 

 chestnut-brown, with narrow pale margins, shorter than the capsule. 



