240 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



SPECIES I—VALERIANELLA OLITORIA. Mdnch. 



Plate DCLXIX. 



Rekh. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XII. Tab. DCCVIII. Fig. 1398. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 251. 

 Fedia olitoria, Vahl. Hook. »k Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 201. 

 Valeriana Locusta, Linn. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 811. 



Stems fragile, dichotomous from below the middle. Leaves 

 strapshaped-oblong or oblanceolate-oblong, blunt, entire or very 

 faintly toothed. Flowers all in crowded head-like corymbose cymes. 

 Fruit sub-globular, laterally compressed, the fertile cell with a 

 prominent mass of spongy tissue on the back ; the two barren cells 

 contiguous, distinct or confluent, collectively larger than the fertile 

 cell, with a faint furrow on the face between them and another 

 bounded by two slightly elevated ribs between them and the corky 

 tissue, which covers the fertile cell. Calyx-limb obsolete in fruit. 



In hedge-banks, cultivated ground, and on old walls. Common, 

 and generally distributed. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Biennial. Spring and 

 early Summer. 



Stems succulent, \ to 18 inches long, generally dichotomous 

 from the very base, or at least within the lowest quarter of their 

 length ; branches divaricate. Radical leaves oblanceolate, indis- 

 tinctly stalked, 1 to 3 inches long, generally decaying early ; stem- 

 leaves sessile, semi-amplexicaul, almost connate. Bracts spreading, 

 oblanceolate-strapshaped, the inner ones strapshaped, scarious and 

 rounded at the apex, ciliated. Flowers very small, bluish-lilac or 

 nearly white. Fruit about as large as a grain of sago, pale-olive, 

 slightly roughened, glabrous or more rarely slightly hairy. Plant 

 pale yellowish-green, flaccid, somewhat shining. 



The form with the fruit hairy I have gathered only near Black- 

 ness Castle, Linlithgowshire. 



Common Lamb^s- Lettuce. 



French, Mdche Commune. German, Gemsines Rapiinzchen. 

 This plant was formerly classed with the Lettuces, and called Lactuca agnina, 

 " from appearing about the time when lambs are dropped." According to other 

 writers, it is a favourite food of lambs. The young leaves in spring and autumn are 

 eaten as a salad, and are very excellent. A small portion of garden earth sown with 

 the seeds in August will supply an excellent portion of this salad throughout the 

 winter : it is commonly known as corn salad. Gerarde tells us that foreigners using 

 it while in England led to its cultivation in our gardens. It has long been a favourite 

 salad-plant in France under the names of mdche, doucette, and salade de dmnoine. We 

 may learn much from our continental neighbours in their appropriation of all natural 

 productions of this sort to the purpose of contributing variety to their diet. 



