CLASS X. ORDER IV.] CERASTIUM. 649 



the flowers on peduncles, about an inch long, from the axis of the 

 divarications are erect, but when in fruit drooping. Calyx in five 

 ovate lanceolate segments, with a narrow membranous margin, and 

 clothed with short viscid pubescence. Petals deeply cleft into narrow 

 lobes, rather longer than the calyx. Stamens with slender filaments, 

 nearly as long as the calyx. Anthers roundish, heart-shaped, of two 

 cells. Styles five, short, with linear downy stigmas . Capsule ovate, as 

 long or rather longer than the calyx, opening with five valves, each 

 valve mostly bifid at the apex. Seeds numerous, attached to a central 

 conical receptacle, a dull brown, kidney-shaped, rough, with lines of 

 elevated points. 



Habitat. Sides of rivers, ditches, and watery places. 



Perennial; flowering in June and July. 



This is a large straggling but variable plant, sometimes quite simple, 

 with a small terminal panicle, and not unfrequently much branched, 

 with a widely spreading panicle, and it is more or less thickly clothed 

 with short jointed hairs, terminating in a viscid gland, and the leaves 

 are either quite smooth or clothed more or less thickly with the same 

 kind of pubescence. It is allied to Stellaria nemorum, but is readily 

 distinguished from that plant^ by its sessile leaves, its more branched 

 and spreading panicles, its ovate lanceolate thick leafy texture of the 

 calyx segments, the five styles, and the five-cleft valved capsules. 



GENUS XVII I. CERA'STIUM. LINN. Mouse-ear 



Chickweed. 

 Nat. Ord. CARYOPHYI/LEJE. Juss. 



GEN. CHAR. Calyx of five pieces. Petals five, bipartite or eraar- 



giuate. Stamens ten. Capsules bursting at the top with ten 



teeth. Name from xf^a?, a horn ; in allusion to the long curved 



horn-like capsules of some of the species. 



* Petals as long or shorter than the calyx. Capsule cylindrical, 



longer than the calyx. 



1. C. vulga'tum, Linn. (Fig. 739.) Common broad-leaved Mouse-ear 

 Chickweed. Stem nearly erect, hairy ; leaves roundish, ovate, the 

 lower ones narrowed into a footstalk ; panicle sub-capitate ; bractea 

 herbaceous ; calyx oblong, hairy, as long as the pedicle ; petals equalling 

 the calyx ; capsule curved upwards, as long again as the calyx. 



English Botany, t. 789. English Flora, vol. ii. p. 330. Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 215. Lindley,Synopsis,p.51. C. glomeratum, 

 Thuillier.Koch. Flora Germ, et Helv. p. 121. 



Root of long slender branched fibres. Stem procumbent at the 

 base, much branched and rooting, becoming erect, from four to six 



