GAMOPETALiE 297 



Lamb's Lettuce {Valerianella olitoria). 



Known also by the name of Corn Salad, which 

 indicates the habitat of this plant, it is allied to the 

 Valerians, but the fruit is not crowned with a 

 feathery pappus, and instead of being perennial, the 

 plant and its allies are annual. 



Corn Salad is found as a doubtful native in all 

 parts of the British Isles, as far north as the Shet- 

 lands, and in the Channel Islands. 



The habitat is hedgebanks and cornfields, waste 

 places, railway banks, etc. Doubtless it owes its 

 distribution largely to having been formerly used as a 

 salad (hence Corn salad). 



The habit is erect or ascending. The plant is 

 rather limp, brittle, and smooth, or rarely downy. 

 And the stems are erect, or ascending, branched from 

 the base, much forked. The radical leaves form a 

 rosette, and are rounded, round at the tip, linear to 

 oblong, or oblong to lance-shaped or spoon-shaped, 

 entire or sparsely toothed, narrowed below. The 

 stem-leaves are moreover broad-based, clasping the 

 stem, toothed. 



The flowers are small, pale lilac, and form a 

 capitate, dense, terminal cyme, with opposite, lance- 

 shaped or linear, toothed bracts. 



There is no calyx-limb. The fruit is small, 

 smooth or hairy, three-celled, the fertile cell with a 

 spongy mass of tissue or corky on the back, the two 



