ENGELMANN—NORTH AM. SPECIES OF JUNCUS. 483 
2i diameters; about 8 ribs are visible on tbe side; the net¬ 
work of the surface and the cross-lines of the arose are very 
delicate but quite distinct. 
Yar. a is often 4 feet high, with a stem 3 lines wide, and 
leaves 8 or 4 or sometimes even 6 lines broad; panicle 4-8 
inches long; heads in some forms, and also in the original 
Haenkean specimen, few-flowered, in others many-flowered; 
seeds usually slender and almost fusiform. Yar. /?, similar to 
t T the last, with leaves 2-3 lines wide, is distinguished by its 
showy, glistening, golden-straw-colored panicles, about 4 
inches in length; sepals almost nerveless; capsules larger 
than in the other forms and longer thah the sepals, thus 
approaching the following species. Yar. y, the mountain 
and eastern form of the species, is smaller, with fewer heads, 
either few-flowered and in a small panicle (about 1^ or 2 
inches long), or many-flowered, 3-4 lines in diameter and 
1-5 or 8 in number; leaves usually £ to lines wide. Yar. 
<5 may be considered a large flowered north-western form 
of the latter; flowers 1J lines or more in length; seeds 0.25- 
0.26 line long, thicker than in the other forms and with short 
and abrupt points. Yar. <?, with its very flat and somewhat 
curved, sword-shaped leaves, and, usually, few large dark-col¬ 
ored heads of triandrous flowers, looks quite peculiar, but 
V flower, fruit and seed are the same as in the other forms. I 
find plants of the same habit and with the same kind of leaves 
and heads among thej different forms of J. Mertensianus and 
of tT. phceocephalus , but the fruit and flowers will always dis¬ 
tinguish them. The seeds in this variety are intermediate 
between those of the last and those of the other forms.— 
Meyer (Linn, 3, 373) describes J. ensifolius with an obovate 
obtuse capsule; I do not find it so, but suppose he had a spe¬ 
cimen of J. Mertensianus in view, for which this shape of the 
capsule is quite characteristic. 
49. J. oxymeris, n. sp.: caulibus (2-3*pedalibus) e rhizo- 
mate repente erectis seu ascendentibus compressis; foliis a 
latere compressis plus minus distincte nodosis; panicula su- 
pradecomposita patula seu stricta; capitulis pauci-( 5-10)floris 
pallidis; floribus pedicellatis; sepalis lineari-lanceolatis. acu- 
' minato-aristatis, interioribus ssepe paulo longioribus stamina 
6 quarta parte superantibus capsula lanceolata rostrata unilo- 
culari plerumque brevioribus; antberis longo-linearibus fila- 
mento duplo longioribus ; stigmatibus ovarium lanceolatum 
apice attenuatum cum stylo ei sequilongo sequantibus exsertis ; 
seminibus ovato-oblanceolatis apiculatis areis lsevibus reticu- 
latis.— J. acutiflorus , floribus solito longioribus , Benth. PI. 
Hartw. 341. 
Sacramento Yalley, Cal., Hartweg , 2017, San Francisco 
and Mariposa, Cal., JBolander , Hb. n. 95. 
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Missouri 
. . . , Botanical 
copyright reserved garde n 
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