CLASS X. ORDER 111.3 SILENE. 625 



cloven with broad segments; crown of small acute bifid scales; stem 

 branched and spreading ; leaves ovate lanceolate, or spatulate. 



English Botany, t. 957. — English Flora, vol. ii. p. 293. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 205, -Lindley, Synopsis^ p. 45. — S. inflata. — 

 /S. Hooker, Flora, Scot. vol. i. p. 135. 



Root fibrous, with creeping branched underground stems. The 

 whole plant smooth, and of a very glaucous green. Stems numerous, 

 prostrate, and mostly much branched at the base, becoming erect, 

 from three to six inches high, leafy, round, hollow. Leaves opposite, 

 sessile, sometimes the lower ones tapered into a footstalk, lanceolate or 

 ovate lanceolate, single ribbed, smooth, very glaucous, somewhat fleshy, 

 the margins frequently finely and irregularly toothed, often with a few 

 short hairs. Flowers solitary, terminal, or several in a branched panicle, 

 the peduncles stout, erect, each with a pair of ovate lanceolate leafy 

 or sub-membranous bractea. Calyx very large for the size of the plant, 

 ovate, inflated, sub-membranous, pale green, or mostly purplish, with 

 numerous ribs, and copiously netted with veins. Petals five, white, 

 the limb inversely heart-shaped, wed^e-shaped at the base, the claw 

 dilated at the top, slender below, and crowned with a scale, cleft into 

 short acute lobes. Stamens with slender filaments^ as long as the 

 calyx. Styles with slender stigmas^ from three to five, longer than the 

 stamens. Capsule globose, smooth, smaller than in the last species, 

 enveloped in the persistent calyx. Seeds numerous, dark brown, 

 kidney-shaped, elegantly marked with lines of elevated points. 



ifaii^a^.—Frequent on the sea shore ; in sandy places and amongst 

 stones, also on the sides of mountain rills. 



Perennial; flowering from June to August. 



Sect. 3. Otites. Otth. De Cand. Prod. p. 1, p. 369. Stems 

 elongated. Flowers in whorled racemes. 



4. <S\ Oti'tes, Smith. (Fig. 710.) Spanish Catchfly. Stem erect, 

 nearly simple, scarcely pubescent, and wiih few leaves ; flowers nu- 

 merous, small, dioecious, in racemose whorls ; petals entire, linear, 

 naked ; leaves spatulate, somewhat fleshy, the upper ones lanceolate. 



English Botany, t. 85. — English Flora, vol. ii. p. 298. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol.i. p. 205. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 46. 



Root cylindrical, long, branched, somewhat fleshy, yellow, bearing a 

 tuft of leaves and a solitary stem^ rarely branched, from one to two feet 

 high, round, nearly smooth, and bearing a few pairs of opposite leaves, 

 very viscid in the upper part. Leaves from the root numerous, spatu- 

 late, dark green, paler beneath, somewhat fleshy, more or less viscid, 

 and roughish, from two to three inches long, the footstalk channeled. 

 Inflorescence a terminal spike of numerous flowers, in racemose whorls, 

 the branches opposite. Flowers small, yellowish green, on slender 

 peduncles, from the axis of ovate short bracteas, dioecious, the male 

 flowers with a sub-clavate calyx, the female flowers with a globose one, 

 smooth, as is the whole inflorescence. Petals entire, small, linear. 



