54 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Section II.^ACETOSA. Tournef. 



Styles adnate to the angles of the ovary. Leaves comraoiily sagittate 

 or hastate, acid. Flowers generally polygamous or monoecious, or 

 dioecious. 



SPECIES xm.—B, U M E X SCUTATUS. Linn. 

 Plate MCCXXII. 



Leaves very succulent, roundish deltoid, subpanduriform, hastate 

 or hastate-sagittate, with the basal lobes divaricate, subobtuse ; lower 

 stem leaves similar; the upper ones narrower and more triangular 

 and frequently acute ; all stalked. Ochrea3 entire, dim, pure white. 

 Branches of the panicle few, ascending, leafless. Pedicels rather shorter 

 than the fruit petals, articulated a little below the middle, spreading 

 half-way round the stem. Flowers monoecious. Sepals applied to the 

 base of the fruit petals. Enlarged petals in fruit scarious and some- 

 what coloured, suborbicular, deeply cordate, rounded at the apex, 

 entire, extending far beyond the nut, rather faintly reticulated, destitute 

 of tubercles, and without greatly thickened midribs. Leaves acid, 

 glaucous. 



On old walls and in pastures. Rare, and certainly not native. It 

 occurs in Glamorganshire ; at the head of Silverdale in Yorkshire ; near 

 Keswick, Cumberland. In Scotland it is naturalised at Craigmillar 

 Castle, near Edinburgh ; it is also reported from Burntisland in Fife. 



[England, Scotland.] Perennial. Summer. 



Rootstock slender, creeping. Stem slender, decumbent at the base, 

 tlien erect, flexuous, sparingly branched, 8 inches to 2 feet high. 

 Leaves few, the lowest 1 to 2 inches long, and nearly as broad, some- 

 what panduriform, from the basal lobes projecting beyond the general 

 outline of the leaf. Stipules large, scarious, pure white. Panicle very 

 lax. Whorls few, remote, 3- to 5-flowered. Fruit petals \ inch in 

 diameter, white tinged with pink, semitransparent. Nut {^ inch 

 long, oval, triquetrous, pale brown, smooth, shining. Plant intensely 

 glaucous and very acid, the leaves fleshy and brittle. 



French Sorrel. 

 French, Patience a ecussons. German, Schildhldttriger Arripfer. 



SPECIES XIV.— R UMEX ACETOSA. Linn. 

 Plate MCCXXIII. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 2528. 



Leaves rather succulent, the radical ones oblong or oval-oblong, deeply 



