Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/335

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on the Genus Juncus of Linnæus.
293

thus described: "Calycc hexaphyllo, staminibus totidem, quot sunt calycis folia, et semine multo in vasculo seminali recondito a Scirpo differt[1]." The species are also divided into those which are leafy and those which are leafless.

Scheuchzer and Haller have included the Gramina juncea and the Gramina hirsuta in their Juncoides, rejecting at the same time from the former family the Eriophora and some other genera which Ray had retained. The real Junci, such as acutus, glaucus, effusus, &c. rank under a separate division, with this definition: "Flosculi hexapetali, rosacei, sex scilicet petalis in orbem positis constantes." — "Vascula seminalia triquetra aut ex triquetro rotundata, trivalvia, septoque per medium cujusque valvæ longitudinem procedente, in tria loculamenta divisa, seminibusque plurimis plerumque, ac minutissimis repleta, a Juncoide autem specialiter differt, scirpis teretibus, prorsus enodibus[2]," &c. Tournefort, whose attention was chiefly arrested by the corol, has included in his character all three of these strongly-marked families, because he found their petals, otherwise called the leaflets of the calyx, to correspond. The penetrating Micheli, however, led more by the internal structure of plants, adopted two distinct genera; the first, Juncus, which he describes as having a trilocular, many-seeded capsule; the other, Juncoides, with a unilocular, three-seeded capsule. The great Linnæus, guided by Tournefort, re-joined them; and at the same time adopted in his generic character the peculiarity of the Gramina hirsuta, as being unilocular;— by which inconsistency the real Junci are all excluded! Jussieu does not describe the cells in his generic definition; but at the head of the natural family he calls them trilocular.

The Gramina hirsuta seem to have been first taken up by J. Bauhin under the name of Luzula. Cesalpinus calls the Jun-

  1. Raii Syn. 3d ed. 431.
  2. Scheuchzer's Agrostographia, p. 337.
2 q 2
cus