BALSAM TRIBE. 129 



hairy ; stalks 1 3 flowered ; leaves oblong, heart-shaped, 

 variously lobed and notched ; petals minute or wanting. 

 Warm places near the sea ; not uncommon in the 

 West of England. Whole plant roughish with minute 

 hairs, and sending out several leafy stems, which lie 

 remarkably close to the ground ; the leaves are not pin- 

 nate, as in the other British species, and the flowers are 

 rarely found with petals. Like many other sea-side 

 plants, it is not unfrequently met with in inland moun- 

 tainous districts, occurring plentifully on Dartmoor, in 

 Devonshire, many miles from the sea. Fl. all the 

 summer. Perennial. 



* The beaks attached to the capsules of the Stork' s- 

 bills become spirally twisted when ripe, often springing 

 to a considerable distance from the parent plant. They 

 are furnished on the inner side with long elastic bristles ; 

 and being hygrometric, uncurl when moistened. The 

 combined action of the beak and bristles thus gives to 

 the seed the power of locomotion at every change in the 

 moisture of the atmosphere. A twisted capsule, if 

 moistened and laid on a sheet of paper, will, in its effort 

 to straighten itself, soon crawl an inch or more away 

 from the spot on which it was laid. 



ORD. XXL BALSAMIJSTACE^:. BALSAM TRIBE. 



The flowers of this order are so exceedingly irregular, 

 that it is almost impossible to define the characters 

 without employing terms which would be out of place 

 in a work which professes to give merely a popular 

 description of British wild flowers. The following de- 

 scription, however, of the only British species belonging 

 to the Balsam Tribe, will serve to identify any others 

 which are likely to fall in the reader's way. An annual 

 succulent plant, much swollen at the joints, with a soli- 

 tary branched stem, and egg-shaped, deeply serrated 

 leaves. From the axil of each of the upper leaves 

 proceeds a flower-stalk, taking a horizontal direction, 



K 



