James Ebenezer Bicheno

“ 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 ”

“ The old herbalists seem to have had no other character for the Junci than their grassy appearance, and their internal spongy structure. This comprehended an heterogeneous assemblage of 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 ”

“ Ray's Orchis anthropophora altera. Hist. Plant. 1218, seems to answer to it. From the reports we have received of the Harefield O. militaris, mentioned by Blackstone as growing with the fusca, we suspect it to belong to this species rather than to the following. Haller's t. 28. is somewhat doubtful.
Willdenow's specific character, and consequently that of the Hortus Kewensis, does not accord with the English plant; for the middle segment cannot be called bilobed, nor are the bracteas, upon which the editor of Linnæus places his chief dependence, obsolete. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The reference to Vaiilant also leads me to suspect it, t. xxxi. f. 24., as well as f. 22. and 23., being O. variegata. The bracteas, however, vary so much in shape in the dried specimens of all the three plants, from the circumstance of the point being caducous, that we ought not, perhaps, to rely too much on the character drawn from this appendage. ”