244 ENGLISH BOTANT. 



SPECIES v.— VALERIANELLA ERIOCARPA. Desv. 



Plate DCLXXIII. 



Beich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XII. Tab. DCCXII. Fig. 1408. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 380 hia. 

 Fedia eriocarpa, Beich. Ic. PI. Grit. Vol. I. Tab. (j5. 



Stem rather stout, firm, dicliotomous usually from below or 

 about the middle. Leaves oblanceolate-strapshapcd, entire, the 

 upper ones strapshaped-lanceolate, often with 1 or 2 small teeth 

 at the base. Flowers rather crowded, in small corymbose cymes, 

 and generally also solitary in most of the upper forks of the stem. 

 Fruit oval-ovoid, not laterally compressed, scarcely acuminate; 

 the fertile cell convex and reticulated on the back, but without 

 spongy tissue ; the barren cells not contiguous, reduced to small 

 curved tubes, which appear on the face of the seed as two elevated 

 ribs enclosing an oval space. Calyx-limb accrescent in fruit, 

 nearly as long and as broad as the fruit, semi-transparent, 

 netted with opaque veins, nearly as long as the fruit, very slightly 

 oblique, denticulate all round, with the largest tooth over the 

 fertile cell. 



In cultivated ground, &c. Very rare, and perhaps only ac- 

 cidentally introduced in Britain. I have a specimen from 

 between Henley Castle and Barnard Green, Worcestershire, col- 

 lected by Mr. E. Lees. That gentleman informs me he gathered 

 it by the roadside, where it was plentiful in 1845 ; but he has not 

 visited the locality lately. 



England ? Annual. Summer. 



Very like V. dentata, but the stems are shorter, commonly 

 under 1 foot high, much stouter, and with the branches thicker 

 upwards, and diverging at a greater angle ; the leaves less pointed 

 and less frequently toothed at the base^ the branches of the cyme 

 elongating much more after flowerin":, so that the flowers assume 

 a distmctly racemose appearance, which, though it exists, is not 

 conspicuous in the other British species. The fruit is like that of 

 V. dentata, and has the same arrangement of barren cells, but these 

 converge less towards the top ; the calyx-limb is much larger and 

 distinctly reticulated. The fruit is more commonly pubescent than 

 glabrous. 



Hairy -fruited LamVs-Lettuce. 



French, Mdclie d, Fruit Velu. German, Borstiges Bapiinzclten. 



