LABIATE TRIBE 53 



leaves have distinct stalks about half the length of the leaf. This Wound- 

 wort is xery common on river banks and watery places, its widely-creeping 

 roots spreading through the moist soil, and causing much inconvenience to 

 the agriculturist ; yet these roots might apparently be turned to good 

 account. Lightfoot, in his " Flora Scotica," says, that in times of scarcity 

 they have served for food, either when boiled or dried, and have been made 

 iiito bread. Thick tuberous buds form upon the roots, and contain a tasteless 

 farinaceous substance of a highly nutritive character. They are probably 

 the only tubers of any labiate plant which could be used as esculents. 

 Mr. Houlton, some years since, received from the Societ}'' of Arts a silver 

 Ceres medal for introducing this plant to public notice, having previously 

 cultivated it, and made various experiments on the root. The roots are dug 

 up by swine from the low moist lands where they are abundant, and eagerly 

 devoured. Gerarde praises the virtue of this plant in healing " grievous and 

 mortal wounds." He says he derived his knowledge of its powers from a 

 clown, who cured a wound with it in a week, which would have required 

 forty days with balsam itself ; hence he called the plant Clown's Woundwort. 



3. Downy Woundwort (*S'. germdnica). — Whorls many-flowered ; 

 leaves egg-shaped, with a heart-shaped base, crenate or serrate, stalked, 

 densely covered with silky hairs ; vipper leaves lanceolate, acute, sessile ; 

 stem erect and woolly ; calyx with erect teeth, silky ; bracts as long as the 

 calyx ; biennial. This plant has been found very rarely in hedges and by 

 road-sides in various parts of England, where the soil is of limestone, and is 

 more common in Oxfordshire, Hants, and Kent, than elsewhere. The stems 

 are about two feet high ; the flowers, which are externally woolly, ai-e of 

 light purple, the palate striped with white. The plant is remarkable for its 

 dense covering of silky hairs or wool. It flowers in September. 



4. Corn Woundwort {S. arv^nsis). — Flowers in a Avhorl ; stem spread- 

 ing ; leaves egg-shaped, heart-shaped at the base, blunt, crenate ; teeth of 

 the calyx awned ; corolla scarcely longer than the calyx ; floral leaves sessile, 

 acute ; annual. This is a small plant, found more frequently than the farmer 

 desires upon cultivated lands, though it is rare in Scotland. It is easily 

 distinguished, not only from the other species, but from all other labiate 

 plants, by its Avhorls of from four to six small light purple flowers, Avith the 

 palate white, and spotted with purple, and by its lesser size and weak 

 branched stems, as well as its small blunt leaves. It occurs on dry sandy 

 and gravelly soils, flowering from July to September. 



5. Pale Annual Woundwort {S. annua). — Whorls of from 4 to 6 

 flowers, forming a spike ; leaves lanceolate, somewhat acute, broadly serrated, 

 three-nerved, the lower ones stalked ; floral leaves lanceolate, acute ; calyx 

 hairy, with awl-shaped teeth; tube of the corolla longer than the calyx; 

 annual. This plant, which expands its yellowish flowers in August, is very 

 rare. It was found by Mr. Woods in a field l^etween G-adshill and Rochester ; 

 but it is an alien species introduced with seed from abroad. Its roundish 

 nuts are glossy, and minutely rough. 



6. Alpine Woundwort (*S'. alpina). — This south European species has 

 recently been reported from AVotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, by Mr. 

 Cedric Bucknall. The flowers are from 5 to 10 in a whorl; leaves oval, 



