PRIMULACE.^. 263 



Primula, etc.). Stamens attached to the base of the 

 corolla and opposite its lobes. Ovary globose : style 

 slender, persistent on the capsule which opens hy valves. 

 Seeds many with thick tight seed-coat. 



Species about 60, mostly in the sub-tropical and temperate 

 climates of the northern hemisphere but a few also in tropical 

 and southern Africa, Australia and South America. 



In Britain 4 species — Loosestrife, Yellow Pimpernel, etc. 



Lysimachia Icschenaultii Duby ; F.B.I. iii 501, V I ; 

 Pink Loosestrife. 



^ (Ordinary form). A small herb, perennial by a 



knotted rootstock. Stem round, pubescent, reddish, 



clothed to the base by the green or withered leaves. 



Leaves opposite or nearly so, often tufted because of 



axillary buds, oblanceolate, entire, finely white-dotted 



below, glabrous above and mottled with brown internal 



glands, herbaceous, erect: veins green, scarcely visible. 



Flowers in a close terminal handsome raceme 2 to 4 



inches long, pink. Bracts linear, Ji inch : pedicel Yz to 



I inch, slender. Sepals Ye inch, lanceolate, acuminate, 



with thin margins. Corolla tube short ; lobes (petals) 



obovate, Yz inch, spreading. Stamens slightly longer, 



spreading and well exserted. Fruit a perfectly round 



capsule, Y^^oYe inch, sitting inside the now recurved 



sepals, and surmounted by the filiform H inch style; 



at length opening in five or six oblong valves which 



spread out flat. Seeds about eleven, black, with rounded 



outer (dorsal) side and ridged inner, and covered all over 



with a fine raised network, t. 180. Wight Ic. t. 1204; 



Sp. Nilg. t. 132. 



In wet places, very common on the Pulneys, on the open 

 downs and round the shores of the lake at Kodaikanal. 

 Nilgiris : near Ootacamund but not common ; on the downs to 

 Pykara and Kotagiri. Fyson 290, 678, 456, 2058. Bourne 58. 



Gen. Dist. These mountain-tops only. 



