S/iiked Rujh.
HEXANDRIA Monogynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. of 6 leaves, permanent. Cor. none.
Cap/, fuperior, of 3 valves, with 1 or 3 cells. Seeds
feveral. Stigmas 3.
Spec. Char. Leaves flat. Spike clufter-like, drooping,
compound at the bafe. Capfules pointed.
Syn. Juncus fpicatus. Linn. Sp. PI. 469. FI. Lapp,
n. 12 5 . t. 10. f . 4. Sm. Fl. Brit. 386. Hudf. 650.
With. 350. Hull. 76. Light/. 18 7 . Dick/. Dr.
PI. 3 3 . H. Sicc. fa/c. 15 . 1 1 .
C o m m u n ic a t e d with the preceding by Mr. G. Donn
from the alpine regions of Scotland. This is likewife perennial,
flowering in July and Auguft, and growing only about
the grafly fummits of the higheft hills. We have formerly
gathered it upon Ben Lomond. It feems not yet to have been
obferved in England or Wales, though found on the Swifs alps
and in Lapland.
The root is tufted and fibrous, crowned with feveral parcels
of linear, recurved, channelled leaves, more or lefs hairy at
their edges. Stems folitary, 6, or 8 inches high, round,
{lender, fmooth and fimple, bearing 3 or 3 remote fheathing
leaves. Spike terminal, folitary, drooping, interrupted and
fubdivided in the manner of a bunch of grapes, and having
a long lanceolate entire fmooth braCtea at each fubdivifion,
and a fmaller laciniated one under each flower. Segments of
the calyx tipped with hair-like points. Stamina 6. Capfule
pointed, of 3 cells, each occupied by one large feed, as in
J. campe/ris, t. 672, to which this fpecies is certainly, as
Lightfoot obferves, very nearly related ; but they can never be
confounded together. They often grow together in the mod
elevated fituations, but preferve their characters diftinCt.