220 DEVELOPMENT OF 



This plant then must he reckoned as perennial, and not as biennial," 

 with Koch in his Synopsis. Otherwise, to he consistent, Gagea, 

 Tulipa, Epilobiurn palustre, Mentha arvensis, and Stachys palus- 

 tris must be reckoned as triennials. In true biennials, as in 

 Girsium lanceolatum, the course is quite different. 



In Oxaliscorniculata the whole plant perishes annually, and there 

 is nothing perennial about it. The different habit of 0. eornicu- 

 lata and O. stricta depends on this, that in the first the primary 

 axis remains proportionally short, while the procumbent frequently 

 rooting branches, which spring from the axils of the four or five 

 lower leaves, spread out, but in 0. stricta the primary axis is 

 especially developed and has long internodes, while the branches 

 in the axils of nine or ten lower leaves remain far shorter than in 

 0. corniculata. These points are not in general sufficiently 

 distinguished in their speci6c characters. In both, the first 

 appendage of the branch is a small lanceolate scale, as is the case 

 also in the lateral runners of 0. acetosella. 



Anemone Hepatica. 



The common Hepatica presents several points of interest in its 

 construction. If it is examined in spring during the time of 

 flowering, we find at the top of the main axis, from whose lower 

 part numerous branched roots are developed, thickly clothed with 

 fine hairs, the coriaceous leaves of the former, here and there 

 withered at the margin, and bearing about them the signs of 

 approaching decay. Since the internodes are not developed they 

 stand with the base of one directly on that of another. Im- 

 mediately above these leaves, the internodes in this case also 

 being undeveloped, there are from three to eight membranaceous 

 imbricated scales exhibiting slight traces of a tendency to form 

 a lamina, without, however, there being any gradual transition 

 from the perfect leaves to these scales. 



In the axil of the lowest scale, and if the number of scales is 

 large, in that of the second, third, and fourth also, there are little 

 buds whose outer coats are membranaceous scales, the outermost 

 always seated with its back to the main axis, and which inclose 

 the rudiments of perfect three-lobed leaves. In the axils of the 

 scales above these are the solitary peduncles. In the axil, how- 

 ever, of the last, and sometimes of the last but one, there seems 

 at first to be no peduncle, but, on close examination, the rudiments 



