WOOPS AND THICKETS USf SUMMER 



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Two species of Willow Herb (order Onagracece) grow in copses 

 and thickets, and are easily recognised by their rose-coloured flowers 

 with very long, inferior ovaries. One is the beautiful French 

 Willow or Rose Bay Willow Herb (Epilobium angustifolium), an 

 erect plant, varying from two to six feet in height, widely distributed, 

 though not very common, flowering during July and August. Its 

 leaves are alternate, narrow-elliptical, entire or with very small 

 teeth, and very shortly 

 stalked. The flowers are 

 about an inch in dia- 

 meter, numerous, form- 

 ing a very long, loose, 

 terminal, tapering 

 raceme, with a narrow 

 bract at the base of each 

 pedicel. The calyx is 

 tubular, four-cleft, 

 attached to the top of 

 the long ovary ; the 

 corolla consists of four 

 entire, nearly equal, 

 spreading petals ; the 

 stamens, eight in number, 

 all bend downwards ; and 

 the stigma is deeply 

 divided into four lobes, 

 on a long style which 

 also bends downward. 

 The fruit is a four-celled 

 capsule, two or three 



inches long, which spUts when ripe, its valves curling downwards 

 and exposing numerous minute seeds, each of which has a silky tuft 

 of fine hairs that enables it to be dispersed by the wind. The plant 

 is most frequently seen in damp copses, and among the undergrowth 

 of damp woods. 



The second species is the Pale Smooth-leaved Willow Herb 

 (E. roseu7n). an erect plant, seldom more than two feet high, found 

 principally in the damp copses of the southern counties, flowering 

 in July and August. Its stem is four-angled, two opposite angles 

 being much more prominent than the other two ; and its leaves 

 are opposite, with longer stalks, lanceolate or elliptical, pointed, 



THE DOG\YUOD. 



