ENGELMANN—NORTH AM. SPECIES OF JUNCUS. 477 
the diametef of the seed, often only half as long; 7-8 ribs 
visible, usually very distinct, with cross-striation and an ap¬ 
proach to reticulation.—A slender form is distributed in Hb. 
n. 80 and 81, a more rigid one is n. 82, but both run to¬ 
gether. 
Yar. d is the most polymorphous of all the forms of this 
species; it is stouter, taller and more rigid than the other 
varieties, and thus approaches more nearly to the following 
species. The panicle 3-6, or sometimes as much as 9 or 10, 
inches long, and 2-5-7 inches wide, with somewhat spreading 
but rarely horizontal rays, is either much branched and bears 
smaller (5-8-20-flowered) but more numerous heads, or it is 
more simple, with larger (30-40 and in some Delaware speci¬ 
mens even 80 or 90-flowered) and fewer heads; it is usually 
loose, but sometimes quite compact; specimens from South 
Carolina, Hb. norm. 85, have large green heads in a de¬ 
compound panicle. Flowers l|-2 lines long, greenish, at 
last with the capsules light brown; sepals generally 1-3 
or sometimes 5-nerved, very acute, or rarely somewhat ob- 
tusish, usually quite unequal, or, as an exception, nearly equal 
in length; capsule prismatic, and usually obtusish and mu- 
cronate, as long as or mostly longer than the sepals, some¬ 
times acutate and elongate. Seeds slender, and either large 
with shorter appendages, or smaller and thinner and w T ith 
longer tails; the former are 0.30-0.46 line long, length equal 
to 2j diameters, with the appendages 0.60-1.00 line long; 
the more slender seeds are of the same total length, but the 
body of the seed is a little shorter (0.25-0.35 line long) and 
its length is equal to nearly 3 diameters; 8-10 or 15 ribs or 
striae are visible on one side of the seed.—A curious form 
with branched heads, the single branches being elongated into 
spikes, was found by A. Commons near Salisbury, Maryland 
(see p. 427). Mr. liavenel has collected this species in South 
Carolina with often more than 3 stamens; Hb. n. 87.—This 
variety is the plant which by most American botanists has 
been taken for Meyer’s J.paradoxus; but I have shown above 
(p. 462) that Meyer’s plant, sepalis “exterioribus longioribus ,” 
must be what I have designated as J. acuminatus , var. legiti- 
mus , and cannot have been meant for our plant, the exterior 
sepals of which-are shorter . Meyer’s name was not given in 
reference to the curious seeds, but to the frequent foliaceous 
excrescences of his plant, which seem to be quite rare, if not 
unknown, in the present species. 
45. J. caudatus, Chapm. FI. S. St. 495: caulibus (2-3* 
pedalibus) caespitosis teretibus foliisque rigidis laevibus; pa- 
niculae composite seu decompositae rarais suberectis; capitulis 
pauci-(2-5)floris; sepalis lanceolatis 3-5 nerviis, exterioribus 
brevibus acutis stamina 3-6 aequantibus, interioribus subulatis 
