Suppose throughout that V is a congruence distributive variety. If m ≥ 1, let J V (m) be the smallest natural number k such that the congruence identity α(β •γ •β . . . ) ⊆ αβ •αγ •αβ •. . . holds in V, with m occurrences of • on the left and k occurrences of • on the right. We show that if J V (m) = k, then J V (mℓ) ≤ kℓ, for every natural number ℓ. The key to the proof is an identity which, through a variety, is equivalent to the above congruence identity, but involves also reflexive and admissible relations. If J V (1) = 2, that is, V is 3-distributive, then J V (m) ≤ m, for every m ≥ 3 (actually, a more general result is presented which holds even in nondistributive varieties). If V is m-modular, that is, congruence modularity of V is witnessed by m + 1 Day terms, thenVarious problems are stated at various places. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 08B10. Key words and phrases. Congruence distributive variety; (directed) Jónsson terms; Jónsson distributivity spectrum; congruence identity; identities for reflexive and admissible relations. Work performed under the auspices of G.N.S.A.G.A. Work partially supported by PRIN 2012 "Logica, Modelli e Insiemi". [368][369]. We also need the easy fact that, for every m and k, the condition J V (m) ≤ k is equivalent to a strong Maltsev condition; for example, this is a consequence of the equivalence of (A) and (B) in Theorem 2.1 below.Proposition 1.1. If V and V ′ are congruence distributive varieties, then their non-indexed product V ′′ is such that J V ′′ (m) = max{J V (m), J V ′ (m)}, for every positive natural number m.We do not know whether, for every pair V, V ′ , we always have someIf in Proposition 1.1 we consider the variety of lattices and the mentioned variety from [5, p. 70-71], we get J V ′′ (m) = max{n − 1, m}. By taking the non-indexed product of the variety of n ′ -Boolean algebras and again the variety from [5, p. 70-71], with n ≤ n ′ , we have J V ′′ (m) = n−1, for m ≤ n−1 and J V ′′ (m) = min{m, n ′ }, for m > n−1.The above examples suggest that J V (m) has little influence on the values of J V (m ′ ), for m ′ < m. On the other hand, we are going to show that J V (m) puts some quite restrictive bounds on J V (m ′ ), for m ′ > m, as we already mentioned for the easier case m = 1.