Mr.W. H. Coleman on a new species o/(Enanthe. 189 



ribus parallelis ; umbellis oppositifoliis ; fructu late-elliptico stylia 



divaricatis triple longiore. Perennis. Habitat in fluminibus pla- 



nitierum et rahus floret. 



Our plant would probably not have passed so long unnoticed 

 but for the circumstance that it seldom produces flowering stems, 

 and still more rarely fruit. Its propagation under these circum- 

 stances is of itself a strong proof of its distinctness from (E. 

 Phellandrium; for that species is indubitably biennial, having 

 appeared in abundance in some ponds near Hertford in the years 

 1839, 1841 and 1843, while in 1840 and 1842 there was not a 

 trace of it till the seedlings began to appear about Midsummer. 

 I have never been able to find stolons in (E. Phellandrium, and 

 conclude that what Koch says concerning them arises from his 

 confounding (E. fluviatilis with it. 



The usual habitat of the true CE. Phellandrium is in stagnant 

 ditches or shallow ponds partially overgrown with sallows. Here, 

 when the water is at the lowest, its seeds germinate on the un- 

 covered or barely covered mud ; and though the segments of its 

 earliest leaves thus produced out of the water have some little 

 breadth, those expanded beneath the surface have the segments 

 perfectly capillary. The flowering stem is remarkably fistulose, 

 furnished under water with frequent joints, which become more 

 distant upwards : it attains its greatest thickness two or three 

 internodes from the base, where it is often an inch or more in 

 diameter. From the joints proceed numerous whorled pectinated 

 fibres, of which the lower ones are as stout as the original fusi- 

 form root : these, descending in a conical manner to the bottom 

 of the water, form a beautiful system of shrouds and stays to 

 support the stem like a mast in an erect position, while the pres- 

 sure on the soft mud is lessened by the buoyancy of the hollow 

 internodes. 



(Enanthe fluviatilis on the contrary delights in running water ; 

 and though it sometimes grows and even fiowers in marsh ditches, 

 the plants always appear unhealthy, are attacked by insects, and 

 produce no fruit. As far as I have been able to ascertain, it flow- 

 ers most freely where there is a depth of about 2 feet of water 

 with a moderately strong current. Here the stems creep upon 

 the surface of the mud, and send out rootlets into it from each 

 joint : they are about the thickness of a quill and not quite solid, 

 with their ends floating and leafy. The aquatic leaves are on 

 stalks about their own length, solid and rather dense, sheathing 

 at the base : they are pinnate or bipinnate, their divisions ex- 

 panded in still water, but in a current drawn up nearly parallel ; 

 but in all cases the ultimate segments are wedge-shaped, about 

 one-fifth of an inch broad, pellucid, with from 5 to 9 nearly paral- 



