276 OEOBANCHE^ 



the three segments of the lower lip obtuse, and much more fringed and 

 curled. A still more striking feature of distinction consists, hoAvever, in the 

 lower part of the stamens being thickly clothed with hairs on the inside, 

 whereas that part in 0. major is smooth ; the dai^k purple stigma, too, of 

 this species affords another characteristic, as that of 0. majcrr is yellow. To 

 one unaccustomed to mark these minute characters, the fragrant odour of 

 cloves would at once indicate this rare flower when nearly expanded ; and 

 Gerard E. Smith says, the scent is remarkably developed if it be flowered in 

 water. The plant is variable in height, colour, and the number of its 

 blossoms : its prevailing hue is a dusky purple ; but it occurs also of a 

 yellowish-brown, or nearly white. The author just alluded to says in his 

 work on the rare flowering plants of South Kent, " The spikes are obtuse, 

 scantily clothed with from ten to sixty flowers ; the stem is flexuose and 

 fragile, hollow, with much white pith." It grows, he says, in hedges and 

 waste grounds, below Caesar's Camp Hill, the Sugar-loaf Hill in Eastwear 

 Bay, near Lydden Spout, and eastwards to Dover. 



3. Red Broom-rape {0. rubra). — Sepals 1-nerved, pointed, longer than 

 the tube of the corolla, undivided ; corolla slightly curved externally, having 

 the upper lip covered within with glandular down ; lips toothed and curled, 

 upper one 2-lobed, lower one 3-lobed; stamens slightly hairy below, their 

 upper part and the upper part of the style having glandular hairs ; stigma 

 light red ; perennial. This plant, which is found chiefly along the west 

 coasts of England and Scotland, and in Ireland, is parasitic upon the common 

 thyme. It is slightly fragrant. 



4. Tall Broom-rape {0. ekifior). — Sepals many-nerved, equally 2-cleft, 

 as long as the tube of the corolla, connected in front ; corolla curved, limb 

 spreading, unequally toothed, wavy ; upper lip 2-lobed, lower 3-lobed, the 

 segments nearly equal, acute; filaments smooth above, glandular, hairy 

 below ; stigma of 2 lobes of brownish-yellow ; perennial. This is a rare 

 species, having less of the reddish or purplish brown tint than the preceding, 

 and being altogether of a duller, yellowish hue. The stem is two or three 

 feet high ; and the plant, which flowers from June to August, is rare, but 

 found in several parts of England, growing on the roots of the great knap- 

 weed {Centaurea scabiosa). 



5. Lesser Broom-rape (0. minor). — Sepals many-nerved, broad below, 

 suddenly narrowing into one or two acute points, as long or longer than the 

 tube of the corolla ; corolla curved ; lips bluntly toothed, wavy, upper lip 

 2-lobed, lower of three roundish lobes ; stamens hairy below ; style nearly 

 smooth ; lobes of the stigma purple, and nearly distinct ; annual. This 

 species, which occurs chiefly on the common red clover, is, however, parasitic 

 on various other plants. In Norfolk, Kent, Surrey, and some other counties, 

 it is often very abundant on the clover-fields ; but, unlike most of the species, 

 it does not seem greatly to injure the crop which it infests, though, of course, 

 it occupies some room on the soil. It has not, at any rate, the effects which 

 the ancients ascribed to all the species, which they disliked not alone for the 

 space which they occupied in their fields and the nourishment which they 

 took from the foster plants, but also from the notion that they imparted to 

 them a deleterious property. Hence the Greeks rejected beans on which the 



