284 SCROPHULARIACE^E. Micranthemum. 



19. MICRANTHEMUM, Michx. (Composed of ^rxooV, small, and 

 aftfejuor, flower.) Creeping or depressed small (American) annuals, in mud or 

 shallow water, glabrous, branching, leafy throughout ; the leaves opposite, rounded 

 or spatulate, sessile, usually 3-5-nerved, entire. Flowers solitary in alternate 

 axils, white or purplish, inconspicuous. Gray, Man. ed. 5, 330. Hemianthus, 

 Nutt., includes the species with limb of corolla as it were halved, the upper lip 

 wanting or nearly so. 



M. orbiculatum, Michx. Creeping freely : leaves roundish, 2 to 4 lines long : pedi- 

 cels shorter than calyx : corolla white, hardly equalling the 4-cleft calyx ; its upper lip or 

 lobe manifest : stigma capitate. Fl. i. 10, t. 2. M. emaryinatum, Ell. Sk. i. 18. N. Caro- 

 lina to Texas. (S. Am.) 



M. Nuttallii, Gray. Creeping, with ascending branches an inch or two high : leaves 

 oblong-spatulate or oval-obovate, 2 or 3 lines long: pedicels equalling the campanulate 

 4-toothed calyx : corolla purplish or white, with obsolete upper lip ; middle lobe of the 

 lower lip linear-oblong, nearly twice the length of the lateral ones: appendage of the 

 stamens nearly equalling the filament itself: stigma of 2 subulate lobes. Man. ed. 5, 

 331. Herpestis mirrantJut, Ell. Sk. ii. 105 1 Henuanthiis micranthemoides, Nutt. in Jour. 

 Acad. Philad. i. 123, t. 0. Tidal mud of rivers, New Jersey to Florida: fl. late summer 

 and autumn. 



20. AMPHI ANTHUS, Torr. (,<fyg;<, on both sides, uvdog, a flower ; a 

 blossom produced both at base and apex of the stem.) Single species. 



A. pu.sfl.lus, Torr. A minute annual, glabrous, bearing a radical tuft of oblong or obo- 

 vate leaves (each a line or two long) and a subsessile flower, also sending up a capillary 

 scape an inch or two high and terminated by another similar flower subtended by a pair of 

 leaves: corolla white. Ann. Lye. N. Y. iv. 82; Benth. in DC. 1. c. 425. Shallow pools 

 on flat rocks, Upper Georgia, particularly on Stone Mountain, Leavenworth, Canby, &c. : 

 fl. early spring. 



21. L.IMOSELLA, L. MUDAVORT. (Limus, mud, and sella, seat.) 

 Small annuals, or proliferous-perennial by stolons, glabrous (of wide distribution) ; 

 with fibrous roots and a cluster of entire fleshy leaves at the nodes of the stolons, 

 and short scape-like naked pedicels from the axils, bearing a small and white 

 or purplish flower, in summer. 



L. aquatica, L. Tufts an inch or two high : clustered leaves longer than the pedicels, 

 when scattered on sterile shoots alternate, in the typical form with a spatulate or oblong 

 blade on a distinct petiole ; this in mud rather short, in water elongating to the length of 2 

 to even 5 inches. Reichenb. Ic. Germ. t. 1722. From Hudson's Bay to S. Colorado and 

 the Sierra Nevada, California, in brackish mud, and in fresh water; also on the Pacific 

 coast 1 ? (Eu., N. Asia, Australia, S. Am.) 



Var. tenuifolia, Hoffm. Leaves subulate or filiform, with little or no distinction of 

 petiole and blade, seldom over an inch or so in length. Gray, Man. 1. c. ; Reichenb. Ic. 

 Germ. 1. c. L. tenuifolia, Nutt. Gen. ii. 43. L. subnlata, Ives in Am. Jour. Sci. i. 74, with 

 plate. L. austmlis, R. Br. Prodr. 443. Brackish river-banks and shores. Canada to New 

 Jersey. (S. Am., Australia, Eu., &c.) 



22. SCOPABIA, L. (Scopes, twigs used for brooms.) Tropical Amer- 

 ican undershrubs or herbs, much branched ; with small and slender-pedicelled 

 flowers in the axils of the opposite and verticillate leaves. 



S. dulcis, L. Annual or suffrutescent, almost glabrous : leaves from oblong-spatulate to 



narrowly lanceolate, tapering at base, the larger serrate and incised : s,epals 4 : corolla 



white, 3 lines wide. Lam. 111. t. 85. Gratiola micrantha, Nutt. in Am. Jour. Sci. v. 287 ? 



S. Florida and perhaps on the Mexican border. (Mex., Trop. & Subtrop. Am., and now 



in Asia, &c.) 



