258 APETALOUS EXOGENS 



stellate, floating, the immersed ones linear; fruit subsessile be- 

 tween 2 falcate bracts, the lobes parallel in pairs, bluntly keeled 

 on the back. 

 VERNAL CALLITRICHE. Water Star- wort. 



Annual. Stem 1 to 2 feet long, bifistular, branching, and throwing out radicles 

 from the nodes. Leaves % to % of SB. inch long, sessile, somewhat clasping, 

 punctate. Staminate and pistillate flowers sometimes solitary, more commonly 

 associated and closely approximated in the axils of the leaves, the staminaU being 

 next the stem, the pistillate, exterior, each with 2 bracts. 

 Hob. Pools, and sluggish rivulets : frequent. Fl. April. Fr. July, 



Obs. This plant presents some varieties, which are doubtless pro- 

 duced by the circumstances of their locality, especially one which 

 is often seen, prostrate and radicating, in muddy places from which 

 the water has retired ; but I am not sure that we have more than 

 one species. The plant is thus noticed in DARWIN'S Botanic Gar- 

 den :- - 



" Thy love, CALLITRICHE, two Yirgjns share, 



Smit with thy starry eye and radiant hair ; 



On the green margin sits the youth, and laves 



His floating train of tresses in the waves; 



Bees his fair features paint the streams that pass, 



And bends forever o'er the watery glass." 



ORDER LXXXIX. PODOSTEMACEAE. 



Submersed coriaceous aquatics, adhering to stones, with the aspect of an aquatic 

 moss, or small sea-weed; leaves alternate, multifid, with sheathing stipule-like 

 processes at the base of the petioles ; flowers mostly perfect (or perhaps diclinous, 

 and associated in the spathe-like involucre}, destitute of proper calyx,-*~- but bursting 

 from a sac-like spatfie ; stamens 2 or 3, collateral, with the filaments between sub- 

 ulate brac&ets, and united at base, forming a pedicel; stigmas 2; fruitb capsule, 

 2-celled ; seeds numerous, without albumen. 



366. PODOSTEMUM, MX. 



[Gr. Pints, a foot, and Stemon, stamen ; the stamens being on 5 common footstalk.] 



e Generic Character the same as that of the Order. 



1. p. cerJitopliyl'liim, MX. Leaves dichotomously dissected, 

 somewhat crowded above ; peduncles axillary, solitary. 

 HORN-LEAVED PODOSTEMUM. River-weed. 



Annual f Plant olive-green. Root none, the stem 1 or 2 to 4 inches long, creep- 

 ing, branching, and adhering to pebbles by fleshy processes, or, in deep water, 

 often erect. Leaves with flatted sublinear segments ; petioles fleshy. Flowers en- 

 Teloped in a coriaceous sac, without seam or natural opening, which is lacerated 

 irregularly when the stamens burst forth ; stamens usually 2, the filaments united 

 below into a pedicel. Ovary oblong-ovoid, with 2 opposite grooves, and several 

 purple stripes ; stigmas curved towards the anthers. Before the sac, or spathe, is 

 ruptured, the stamens are bent over, and repose on each side of the stigmas. 

 nab. Pebbly shallow streams ; Brandywine : frequent. Fl. Aug. Fr. Octo. 



ORDER XC. EUPHORBIACEAE. 



Plants (herbs, in Chester County,) often with a milky acrid juice ; leaves mostly 

 simple; stipules small and deciduous, or wanting; flowers commonly monoicous; 

 calyx usually valvate in the bud, sometimes wanting (and sometimes with added 



