A small tree, with dark smooth branches. Leaves ovate, obtuse at 

 the base, quite entire, cottony on the under side. Flowers large 

 solitary, with a cottony calyx and bright pink petals. Fruit a turbinate 

 or roundish angular pome, covered with a thin cottony down, 

 extremely austere, but having a peculiar fragrance. The seeds are 

 officinal for the sake of the mucus they are covered with, and which 

 can be extracted by hot water. The fruit forms an agreeable marma- 

 lade, and is sometimes used in the preparation of a domestic wine of 

 some excellence. 



SANGUISORBE.E. 



Nat. syst. ed. 2. p. 148. 



ALCHIMILLA. 



Calyx inferior, tubular, permanent; the limb spreading, 

 in 8 segments; 4 outer alternate ones smallest. Corolla 

 none. Filaments 4, from the mouth of the calyx, opposite to 

 the smaller segments, awl-shaped, short. Carpel in the bottom 

 of the calyx, generally solitary; style from the base of the 

 ovary, about the length of the stamens ; Stigma capitate. Ache- 

 nium 1, occasionally 2, elliptical, compressed, naked, covered by 

 the closed permanent calyx. Flowers small, green, often in- 

 conspicuous. 



481. A. vulgaris Linn, sp.pl 178. Eng. Bot. t. 597. Smith 

 Eng. Fl. i. 223. DC.prodr. ii. 589. In dry subalpine Euro- 

 pean pastures. 



Root woody, with long fibres. Stems from 4 to 8 inches high, more 

 or less procumbent, alternately branched, round, hairy, leafy, terminating 

 in numerous little corymbose clusters of green flowers, on smooth, 

 almost capillary, stalks. Radical leaves numerous, on long footstalks, 

 large, roundish-kidney-shaped, bluntly lobed, plaited, serrated ; of a 

 fine green above ; most hairy beneath ; stem-leaves of the same form, 

 but a great deal smaller, alternate, on short stalks, with a pair of large 

 notched stipules_to each. Flowers small, green, in erect dichotomous 

 hairy corymbs. The decoction slightly tonic. 



235 



