548 EPILOBIUM. [CLASS VIII. ORDER I. 



than the stamens, with a club-shaped stigma. Capsule very long, 

 narrow, four angled, four valved, four celled, and many seeded, the 

 seeds small, ovate, crowned with a tuft of long white silky hairs. 



Habitat. Wet places, ditches, sides of rivers, &c. ; frequent. 



Perennial ; flowering in July. 



This species is readily distinguished from E. roseum by its sessile 

 narrower leaves, and the stem being much more distinctly marked 

 with the decurrent lines. 



7. E. virga'tum, Fries, novit. flor. suec. p. 115. (Fig. 624.) Rod-like 

 Willow herb. Stem erect, slightly downy, with two or four elevated 

 lines; leaves opposite, the upper alternate, lanceolate, gradually nar- 

 rowing from the rounded base to the point, sessile, or with a short 

 footstalk, distantly toothed ; stigmas club-shaped, or spreading. 



Koch. Fl. Germ, et Helv. p. 241. " E. obscuram, Reicheub. Fl. g. 

 exsisc. n. 358." 



Root somewhat woody, with long branched fibres, and short creeping 

 underground stems. Stem erect, about two feel high, simple, scarcely 

 branched at the top, round, with four elevated lines, scarcely downy 

 below, except on the lines, more so above. Leaves numerous, crowded 

 just above the surface of the ground, more distant upwards, opposite, 

 a few of the upper alternate, sessile, narrow, lanceolate, rounded at the 

 base, and gradually tapering to the point, the lower radical ones only 

 tapering at the base into a short footstalk, distantly and irregularly 

 toothed, rarely entire, quite smooth above, paler on the under side, 

 except on the stout mid-rib, the branched veins and on the margin it 

 is downy, which in the lower leaves is generally of a pink colour. 

 Flowers few, solitary from the axis of the upper leaves, small, sessile, 

 the calyx tube obtusely four angled, clothed with short close pressed 

 pubescence, the limb of four ovate lanceolate segments. Petals rather 

 longer than the calyx, inversely heart-shaped, pale rose coloured. 

 Stamens with simple slender filaments and small ovate yellow anthers, 

 shorter than the style, with its club-shaped stigmas, sometimes lobed 

 and spreading. Capsule on a short footstalk, long, nearly cylindrical, 

 scarcely furrowed, four valved, four celled, and many seeded, the seeds 

 small, ovate, crowned with a tuft of long white silky hairs. 



Habitat. Marshy places about Lincoln ; rare. 



Perennial ; flowering in July. 



This species we have only collected about Lincoln, but it is probably 

 not unfrequent in other places, but is overlooked for E. palustris, from 

 which and all its varieties it differs in the stem being distinctly marked 

 by four rarely two elevated lines, the leaves being rounded, not tapering 

 at the base, and the margin toothed, and gradually tapering into rather 

 an obtuse point, and the stem scarcely branched. It is found, though 

 not common, in the northern parts of Germany and Switzerland. 



8. E.palus'trc,Linn. (Fig. 625.) Narrow-leaved Marsh Willow herb. 



