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The silks were largely used by the Roman ladies. The coverlets, which were patterned with various colors, fetched enormous prices, and were regarded as fit adornments of the Imperial palace. Among the spices exported, the most celebrated wore bdellium, and the juncus odoratus or odoriferous bulrush. The Parthians had many liberal usages which imply a fairly advanced civilization.
Juncus, the rush, is here, a sign often welcome to cattle, for they know that water must be near; the bunch is cut down, and the white pith shows, but it will speedily be up again; horse-tails, too, so thick in marshy places one small species is abundant in the ploughed fields of Surrey, and must be a great trouble to the farmers, for the land is sometimes quite hidden by it.
And where formerly the Orchis latifolia, Orchis mascula, and Juncus communis grew in mingled confusion, nothing but water, moss, and the spreading roots of alder cover the ground. As the rush disappears, many birds that for generations have inhabited that marsh must seek accommodation elsewhere.
My other remaining claimant for notice, shown upon the plant at the right margin of page 60, is a modest and inconspicuous individual, and might readily escape attention, save that a more intent observer might possibly wonder at the queer little tubular pinkish blossoms upon the plant a rush while a keen-eyed botanist would instantly challenge the right of a juncus to such a tubular blossom at all, especially at seed-time, and thus investigate.
Then we find in the materials used in stopping leaks the same diversity. "Junk," old rope, is from the Latin juncus, a bulrush, the material used along the Mediterranean shore for calking; "oakum," from the Saxon oecumbe, or hemp. The verb "calk" may come from the Danish kalk, chalk, to rub over, or from the Italian calafatare.
Crisped leaves are known in a mallow, Malva crispa, and as a variety in cabbages, parsley, lettuce and others. Screw-like stems with wide spirals are specific in the flower-stalks of Cyclamen and Vallisneria, varietal in Juncus effusus spiralis and accidental in Scirpus lacustris. Cleft leaves, one of the most general anomalies, are typical in Boehmeria biloba.
Along the sandy shores the ever-present plants are mostly English, as Dock, a Nasturtium, Ranunculus sceleratus, Fumitory, Juncus bufonius,, Common Vervain, Gnaphalium luteo-album, and very frequently Veronica Anagallise. On the alluvium grow the same, mixed with Tamarisk, Acacia Arabica, and a few other bushes. Bushes are few, except the universally prevalent Adhatoda and Calotropis.
This plant is the round-headed rush, or Juncus conglomeratus of naturalists, and is cultivated with great care, especially on the banks of the sea, in Holland, to prevent the water from washing away the earth; for the roots of these rushes strike very deep in the ground, and mat together near the surface so as to form a hold on the loose soil.
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