18 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



common. I have specimens from Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, 

 Gloucester, Derby, York, and from Edinburgh, Clackmannanshire, 

 Kincardineshire, and Porlarshire ; and as Professor Babington adds 

 Devon, AVarwickshire, and Monmouthshire, there can be little 

 doubt that it is generally distributed. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer 

 and Autumn. 



This plant is generally confounded with E. tetragonum, but the 

 stolons are produced earlier and arc more elongated, especially when 

 growing in wet places. The leaves are shorter, more erect, broader 

 at the base, and tapering from a little above it to the apex, instead 

 of having the sides parallel for a considerable distance ; they are 

 more flaccid, without any of the shiny almost greasy appearance of 

 those of E. tetragonum ; they have the veins far less impressed 

 above, particularly in the broader-leaved forms ; the margins are 

 less strongly and more remotely denticulate ; the flowers rather 

 deeper in colour ; the pedicels and pods shorter, the latter 2 to 2^ 

 inches long and curved upwards where they join the pedicel, so as 

 to be parallel with the stem for the greater portion of their length. 

 The seeds are similar, but longer in proportion to their breadth ; 

 the plant is of a deeper green colour, often reddish late in the 

 season ; and when it has elongated stolons, the plants produced 

 from them in the succeeding year have the stem curved at the base, 

 though this is scarcely observable in those plants which have short 

 stolons and grow in drier ground. 



Short-podded square-stalked Willow-herh. 



French, EpUohe Ohscur. German, Dunkelgriiner Schotenweiderich. 



SPECIES X.—EPIL OBI UM PALUSTRE. Linn. 



Plate DIV. 



Stolons produced in summer, subterranean, reddish or yellowish, 

 thread-like, with remote pairs of yellowish scale-like leaves ; in 

 autumn terminated by a cone-like scaly bud of thick imbricated 

 yellowish loaves. Stem erect, curved at the base, simple or 

 branched, round, without elevated lines, more or less thickly clothed 

 with curled hairs. Leaves rather dim, mostly opposite, sessile or sub- 

 sessile, not decurrent, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, wedge-shaped 

 at the base, which is sometimes gradually contracted into a very short 

 petiole in the uppermost leaves, tapering to and generally acute at 

 the apex, entire, or very faintly callously denticulate ; midrib only 

 mipressed on the upper surface and prominent beneath. Bracts 

 alternate, resembUng the leaves. Buds obtuse. Elowers numerous 



