286 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



The habitat is dry banks, chalk downs, calcareous 

 pastures, limestone districts, dry pastures, stony 

 and sandy places. The plant occurs on limestone 

 grassland with such plants as Hairy Violet, Milkwort, 

 Kidney Vetch, Horseshoe Vetch, Salad Burnet, 

 Rockrose, Scabious, Clustered Bellflower, Marjoram, 

 Bee Orchis, Fly Orchis, etc., on chalk grassland, 

 with Sheep's Fescue, and on chalk pasture. 



The habit is that of a trailing plant. The whole 

 plant is practically smooth. The stems are nearly 

 simple, hairy below the nodes, tufted, wiry, erect, 

 or prostrate, or spreading, in patches or leafy 

 tufts. The rootstock is stoloniferous. The root is 

 spindle-shaped. The leaves are narrow to linear, or 

 oblong to lance-shaped, with a blunt point, four in a 

 whorl, rigid, bent back, not fringed with hairs. 

 There are only two leaves in a whorl in the upper 

 part, four in a whorl below^, and the other two are 

 reduced to stipules and opposite. The upper leaves 

 may be lance-shaped to narrow, the middle obovate 

 to lance-shaped, the lower obovate. 



The flowers are white or lilac, in a loose cyme, or 

 small terminal cluster. The corolla is often pink, 

 papillose externally, white within, and is funnel- 

 shaped, tubular below. The fruit is small, wrinkled, 

 granulate, or papillose. 



The flowers bloom in June and July. The plant 

 is a herbaceous perennial, and is 6 to lo in. in height. 



Honey is contained in the fleshy ring at the 

 base of the style, and fills the tube, which is 2 mm. 



