CLASS X. ORDER IV. 3 CERASTIUM. 649 



the flowers on peduncles, about an inch long, from the axis of the 

 divarications are erect, but when in fruit drooping. Calyx in five 

 ovate lanceolate segments, with a narrow membranous margin, and 

 clothed with short viscid pubescence. Petals deeply cleft into narrow 

 lobes, rather longer than the calyx. Stamens with ^\e\\^QV filaments, 

 nearly as long as the calyx. Anthers roundish, heart-shaped, of two 

 cells. Styles five, short, with linear downy stigmas . Capsule ovate, as 

 long or rather longer than the calyx, opening with five valves, each 

 valve mostly bifid at the apex. Seeds numerous, attached to a central 

 conical receptacle, a dull brown, kidney-shaped, rough, with lines of 

 elevated points. 



Habitat. — Sides of rivers, ditches, and watery places. 



Perennial; flowering in June and July. 



This is a large straggling but variable plant, sometimes quite simple, 

 with a small terminal panicle, and not unfrequently much branched, 

 with a widely spreading panicle, and it is more or less thickly clothed 

 with short jointed hairs, terminating in a viscid gland, and the leaves 

 are either quite smooth or clothed more or less thickly with the same 

 kind of pubescence. It is allied to Stellaria nemorum^ but is readily 

 distinguished from that plant,* by its sessile leaves, its more branched 

 and spreading panicles, its ovate lanceolate thick leafy texture of the 

 calyx segments, the five styles, and the five-cleft valved capsules. 



GENUS XVIII. CERA'STIUM— Linn. Mouse-ear 



Chickweed, 



Nat. Ord. Caryophyl'le^. Juss. 



Gen. Char. Calyx of five pieces. Petals five, bipartite or emar- 

 ginate. Stamens ten. Capsules bursting at the top with ten 

 teeth. — Name from ks^o,^, a horn ; in allusion to the long curved 

 horn-like capsules of some of the species. 

 * Petals as long or shorter than the calyx. Capsule cylindrical^ 

 longer than the calyx. 

 1. C. vulga'tiim, Linn. (Fig. 739.) Common broad-leaved Mouse-ear 

 Chickweed. Stem nearly erect, hairy ; leaves roundish, ovate, the 

 lower ones narrowed into a footstalk ; panicle sub-capitate ; bractea 

 herbaceous ; calyx oblong, hairy, as long as the pedicle ; petals equalling 

 the calyx ; capsule curved upwards, as long again as the calyx. 



English Botany, t. 789.— English Flora, vol. ii. p. 330.— Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 215. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 51. — C. glomeratum, 

 Thuillier. — Koch. Flora Germ, et Helv. p. 121. 



Root of long slender branched fibres. Stem procumbent at the 

 base, much branched and rooting, becoming erect, from four to six 



