The Common Rush.
The Common Rush (Juncus communis) is a very abundant species, to be found in almost all wet and marshy places, flowering during July and August. Its stems are round, leafless, soft, faintly furrowed, solid, with a continuous pith. They are from one to three feet high, and are sheathed at the base by a few brownish scales, but the plant has no true leaves. Most of the stems bear a panicled cluster of green or brown flowers about six inches from the top. These panicles are very variable in form and size, being either loose or dense, and varying from one to three inches in diameter.
The Hard Rush (Juncus glaucus) is a very similar plant, flowering at the same time; but its stem is slender, rigid, deeply furrowed, with the pith interrupted by air spaces. It is generally from one to two feet high; and, like the last species, has no true leaves. The panicle is looser than that of J. communis, with fewer and larger flowers; and it is never more than two or three inches below the top of the stem.
A few of the Rushes form a group known collectively as the Jointed Rushes, because their cylindrical or slightly-flattened, hollow leaves are divided within by transverse partitions of pith which give them a jointed appearance, especially when they are dried. Two or three of the species referred to are very common in wet places. They are very similar in general appearance, and one of them—the Shining-fruited Jointed Rush (Juncus lamprocarpus) is selected for illustration.
Another species is the little pale-coloured Toad Rush (J. bufonis), which grows to a height of only a few inches. It has tufted stems that branch from near the base; and its flowers are either solitary or in clusters of two or three.
As regards the Sedges (order Cyperaceæ), the species are so numerous that it is impossible to do them justice in a work of this nature.
The Shining-Fruited Jointed Rush.
Their stems are solid, usually more or less triangular, not swollen at the nodes as in grasses; and the sheaths of the leaves which surround the stems are not split. The flowers are in little green or brown spikelets that are either solitary at the top of the stem, or collected into a cluster, spike, panicle, or umbel. Each spikelet is in the axil of a scaly or leafy outer bract, and consists of several scales or glumes, each with a single sessile flower in its axil. The flowers have no perianth, but there are often a few very small scales or bristles at their base. They have two or (generally) three stamens; a one-celled ovary; and a style that is more or less deeply cleft into two or three slender stigmas. The fruit is a small, one-seeded nut, usually flattened in the species which have two stigmas, and triangular where the stigmas are three.