JUNCUS gracilis.
Slender Spreading Rush.
HEXANDRIA Monogynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. of 6 leaves, permanent. Cor. none.
Caps, superior, of 3 valves, with 1 or 3 cells. Seeds
Several. Stigmas 3.
S p e c . C h a r . Leaves linear, flat. Stem forked, racemose,
taller than the leaves. Flowers solitary.
F o UND by Mr. G. Don in 1795 or 1796, by the side of a
rivulet, in marshy ground, among the mountains of Angus-
shire, but very rarely. It appears to us to be a nondescript,
but we received from Mr. Dickson, some years before the
above date, a specimen not so far advanced towards maturity,
of what seems to us the same species.
The root consists of woolly fibres, and has the appearance
of being perennial. Stem very slender, a foot or more in
height, naked, except at the base and summit. Radical leaves
but one or two, much shorter than the stem, narrow, flat,
slightly thickened, or somewhat involute, at their edges, not
channelled. The top of the stem terminates in a few racemose
forked branches, with 2 or 3 leaves at their base. Flowers
solitary, mostly sessile. Calyx-leaves sharp-pointed. Valves
of the capsule blunt and emarginate.
The inflorescence and fructification of this Rush come
nearest to Imfonius, t. 802; but the fewness of the flowers
taller stem, and flatter leaves, as well as the broader and
emarginate valves of the fruil, serve well to distinguish it,
not to mention the probably perennial root.