378 Transactions. — Botany. 



Art. LIX. — On the Occurrence q/* Juncus lamprocarpus, Ehr.y in New Zealand. 



By T. Kirk, F.L.S. 



{Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 2Wl August, 1874.] 



Ix the early pai-t of the present year I discovered Juncus lamprocarpus^ Ehr., 

 gi'owing in great abundance about Karori and other places in the vicinity of 

 Wellington ; and a few months later in the southern part of the province of 

 Otago. About Wellington it occurs only in wet, swampy places, where it 

 often forms a large portion of the herbage and is closely cropped by cattle ; at 

 Invercargill it is found not only in swamps, but in places where the soil is 

 scarcely moist, even on the railroad track, a peculiarity which is possibly due 

 to the greater amount of moisture in the atmosphere at the latter place. 



Juncus lamprocarpus is allied to J. holoschoenuSf Br., which it resembles in 

 the jointed and compressed stems and leaves, but from which it diffei"S in the 

 much branched panicle, in the segments of the perianth being shorter than the 

 capsule, and especially in the fascicles never being collected into lateral 

 cymes. 



When compared with British specimens, the New Zealand plant is seen to 

 have the internal divisions of the leaf and stem more prominent, while both 

 the inner and outer segments of the perianth are acute and much shorter in 

 relation to the capsule. 



Our plant may be expected to prove of not unfrequent occurrence in the 

 South Island, although probably confined to the province of Wellington in the 

 North. 



The avidity with which it is eaten by cattle is doubtless one cause of its 

 having been so long overlooked in this district. 



