WATER FIGWORT 117 



Fond of moist conditions, the plant has a tall, erect stem, square in 

 section, and winged, branched, smooth, and purplish. The leaves are 

 stalked, opposite, running down the stem, heart-shaped below, scalloped, 

 the teeth larger upwards. The branches are opposite, with bracts 

 below the flower-stalks, which are lateral 



The flowers are brownish-red, and in panicles or corymbose cymes, 

 which are terminal, dense, and bear numerous flowers. The lobes of 

 the calyx are less than the corolla, and edged with a membrane, brown 

 and torn. The corolla is large and inflated, the upper lip divided 

 into two nearly to the base, and green below. The flower is scented 

 and attractive to wasps. The capsule is bilocular, subrotund, with 

 many brownish seeds. 



Water Figwort grows to a height of 4 ft. It flowers in May, June, 

 July. The plant is a herbaceous perennial propagated by division, the 

 roots being white and fibrous. 



The floral mechanism resembles that of 5. nodosa, and it is chiefly 

 visited by wasps. The anthers touch the abdomen of the insect. The 

 fifth stamen is useless, with no anther, and is like a small black scale- 

 like appendage on the upper wall or lip of the corolla, and probably 

 indicates a reversion to an ancestral type, or a primitive structure. The 

 corolla is short (5 mm.) but wide and globular, and at its base on the 

 superior side two large drops of honey may be seen secreted at the 

 yellow base of the ovary. The stigma at first projects, and is mature 

 before the anthers. Each stage lasts two clays. Both lie on the lower 

 side of the flower. Wasps cling to the outside below the flower, and 

 insert the head between the upper and lower lobes of the corolla. In 

 young flowers they touch the stigma with the front, in older flowers 

 with the underside of the head, and pollen of young plants is trans- 

 ferred to stigmas of older flowers. The style bends down after flower- 

 ing and pollination. Wasps are the chief visitors in this country. 

 Bees also visit it in Illinois. The corolla in colour resembles the 

 wasp's markings. The capsule opens by dividing into two valves, and 

 the seed then falls around the parent plant. 



Water Betony is a sand plant and a clay-loving plant, being found 

 on sand soil or clay soil or sandy loam. 



A fungus, Peronospora sordida, attacks the leaves. 



Two beetles, Longitarsus agilis, L. rutilus; a wasp, Vespa syl- 

 vestris, and Allantus scrophula;, and three moths, Frosted Orange 

 (Gortyna flavago), Depressaria liturella, Water Betony (Cnciillia 

 scrophulari(?), are. found upon Figwort. 



Scrophularia, Brunfels, is from scrofula or scroplmla, for which it 



