21-2 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



upper ones narrowly lanceolate-acute, generally toothed at the 

 base. Flowers not crowded, in small corymbose cymes, and also 

 solitarv in most of the forks of the stem. Fruit ovate-srlobular, 

 not compressed, acuminate; the fertile cell convex on the back, 

 but without spongy tissue; the barren cells collectively larger than 

 the fertile cell, inflated, contiguous, separated from each other by 

 a partition which is indicated by a very narrow shallow furrow 

 on the face, and from the fertile cell by a very faint furrow. 

 Calyx-limb accrescent in fruit, oblique, with a single large entire 

 or tridentate tooth over the fertile cell, and a few very minute 

 ones over the barren cells. 



In cultivated fields. Apparently rare, though generally dis- 

 tributed in England, in Scotland only known to occur in Fife ; 

 but from its great resemblance to the following species, it is 

 probably often passed over. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual. Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Stem slender, not succulent nor extremely brittle, 6 to 18 inches 

 high, repeatedly dichotomously branched ; the branches almost 

 always commencing above the middle. Flower-heads smaller and 

 much less dense than in the two preceding species; the flowers 

 about the same size, but pale-lilac, without any tinge of blue. 

 Fruit rather smaller than that of V. olitoria, but broader at the base, 

 attenuated towards the apex, and crowned by the accrescent calyx- 

 limb, which is somewhat the shape of a coal-scuttle. The fertile 

 cell is broad below, tapering above, with a faint rib down the back, 

 and separated from the inflated barren cells by an indistinct furrow. 

 The fruit is glabrous, or more rarely pubescent, as in the preceding 

 species. 



I have found the fruits with the large calyx-tooth simple or 

 tridentate on the same plants (Castle Taylor, Gahvay, Mr. A. G. 

 More), so that the V. dentata (D. C.) cannot be separated, even 

 as a variety, from V. Auricula ; and De Candolle himself surmises 

 that the two are perhaps not sufficiently distinct. The late Dr. 

 Bromfield, in " Flora Vectensis," apparently not aware that the 

 V. dentata of British botanists is V. Morisonii of De Candolle, 

 quotes this opinion as a confirmation of his own that V. Auricula 

 and V. dentata, Auct. Aug., were probably the same species, which 

 is certainly not the case. 



Sharp-fruited LamV s-Lettuce. 



French, Mdche OrieUette. German, Geohrtes Rapiinzclien. 



