Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/334

292 plants of various genera, e.g. Scirpi, Schœni, Cyperi, Triglochines, Butomus, Eriophora, and others. Nevertheless, with all this confusion, they divided the real Junci, which are included in the first subdivision of the genus in the Species Plantarum, into two families, the hard and the soft; the former being all called acutus, and the latter lævis. The Gramina hirsuta, which are those Junci described as plane-leaved by Linnæus, were kept entirely distinct, and were arranged among the Grasses.

Our systematic countryman Ray gives this description, "de Junco et Gramine Junceo :" — "Juncus caulibus teretibus, fungosis, panicula vel in summo caule existente, vel ex ejus latere inferius exeunte, et multis seminibus majusculis compositâ à reliquis graminifoliis distinguitur. Gramina juncea à juncis distinguuntur caulibus foliosis articulatis. Folia etiam in his non semper teretia sunt, sed in nonnullis speciebus compressa, in omnibus tamen fungosa." The latter part of this description alludes to such as have jointed leaves: but Ray confesses that he has admitted under his definition, in conformity to the opinion of other botanists, plants which he did not know how to dispose of otherwise. He has placed the Gramina hirsuta in a distinct division. In the second edition of his Synopsis, the Gramina juncea are said to differ merely in their having a leafy stem. Ray's definition, it must be confessed, very much lessened the number of plants which were at first admitted, though it still embraced the Eriophora, Triglochines, and some of the Schœni and Scirpi. No improvement of the character appears, as might be expected, in the Methodus Graminum, published afterwards; but on the contrary, it is more loosely defined. Dillenius, in his edition of the Synopsis, introduced considerable correction both in the character of the genus and the synonyms, and the true Juncus is thus