CLASS VI. ORDER HM RUMEX, 525 



f>hoTt Jilaynoits. Nut ovate, acute at each eiul, sliarply three angled, 

 smooth, deep brown. 



Habitat. — Road sides, fields, and waste places; very common. The 

 13. discolor in stony places less frequent. 



Perennial ; flowering in July. 



The enlarged segments of the perianth with their entire long points 

 and the broad obtuse lower leaves readily distinguish this species; 

 it varies in the roughness of the stem and under side of the leaves, 

 arising from the more or less humid situation of its growth ; sometimes 

 it is quite smooth. The base of the stem is mostly enveloped in the 

 dried membranous base of the leaves and stipules, and around the 

 stem at the foot of the lower leaves is generally a torn large stipule. 



10. JR. praten'siSf (Merteus et Koch. Deutschl. fl. v. 2. p. 609.) 

 (Fig. 601.) Meadow Dock. Enlarged pieces of the perianth ovate, 

 heart-shaped, toothed at the base, the point triangular, entire, mostly 

 one only bearing a tubercle ; leaves oblong, heart-shaped, with a 

 lanceolate or acute point; stem with erect branches; whorls of very 

 numerous crowded flowers, nearly leafless. 



Borrer in English Botany, Suppl. t. 2757.— Hooker, British Flora, 

 vol. i. p. 171. — Lindley, Synopsis, Suppl. p. 328. — R. cristatus^ Wallr. 

 Schred. 163. 



Root large, tapering. Stem erect, from three to four feet high, 

 angular, deeply furrowed, smooth below, rough above, alternately 

 branched, with simple or divided branches, frequently two arising 

 from the same point on the stem, one of which is always much longer 

 than the other. Leaves alternate, numerous, on channeled striated 

 footstalks, the lower ones with large sheathing thin brown membranous 

 stipulesj the upper ones much smaller, the lower and radical leaves 

 large, oblong, with an acute point, heart-shaped at the base, the upper 

 ones narrower, lanceolate, entire, rounded or tapering at the base, 

 frequently unequal, the margins waved, and more or less crisped, of a 

 bright green, paler beneath, and rough on the mid-ribs and veins, as 

 well as the footstalks, frequently there are two leaves arising from the 

 same point of the stem, but one always much larger than the other. 

 Panicle mostly very large, of erect straight or somewhat waved rough 

 branches, whorls of flowers numerous, distant below, more crowded 

 above, and not unfrequently at irregular distances, almost always with- 

 out any accompanying leaf Flowers very numerous, crowded, on 

 slender curved peduncles, ]omie(\. below the middle, perianth of six 

 pieces, the three outer ones narrow, linear, concave, thick, the three 

 inner becoming larger, ovate, heart-shaped, unequal in size, the 

 margins toothed towards the base, the teeth triangular, acuminate 

 and awl-shaped, the point triangular, entire, smooth, reticulated with 

 prominent veins, the mid-rib swollen at the base, but only the outer 

 one bearing a tubercle, which is very prominent, ovate, reddish, the 

 VOL. I. 3 z 



