f 96 MATTHIOLA. LCLASI xv. ORDER n. 



Nuphar, and many others. The means by which this little curious 

 plant is enabled, while its flowers are thus submerged, to propagate its 

 species, are not discovered. 



ORDER II. 



SILIQUOSA. Fruit a long narrow pod. 



GENUS XVI. MATTHI'OLA. BROWN. Stock. 



Nat. Ord. CRUCIF'ER^E. Jess. 



GEN. CHAR. Siliqua linear, roundish, or compressed. Stigma of two 

 lobes, erect, thickened at the back, or pointed at the base, con- 

 nivent. Calyx bisaccate at the base, erect. Filaments dilated. 

 Seeds compressed. Cotyledons plane, accumbent. (c Fig. 1, p. 

 871.) Named in honour of P. S. Matthiolus, an Italian phy- 

 sician, who obtained great reputation, and wrote several works on 

 the virtues of plants ; he was a native of Sienna, and died of 

 plague, at Trent, in 1577, at the age of 76. 



1. M. inca'na, Brown. (Fig. 1035.) hoary shrubby Stock. Stem 

 erect, branched, shrubby at the base ; leaves lanceolate, entire, hoary ; 

 siliqua cylindrical, without glands. 



English Flora, vol. iii. p. 205 Hooker, British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. 

 p. 255. Lindley, Synopsis, p. 22. Cheiranthus incanus, Linn. 

 English Botany, t. 1935. 



Root much divided into long slender fibres. Stem erect, about two 

 feet high, shrubby at the base, branched in a bushy manner above, 

 round, hoary. Leaves numerous, lanceolate, obtuse, entire or waved 

 on the margin, thick, and of a leathery substance, clothed on both 

 sides with close more or less thick starry hoary pubescence, the mid-rib 

 stout, forming a short footstalk at the base. Inflorescence terminal 

 sub-corymbose clusters, the pedicles hoary, round, mostly longer than 

 the calyx, which is hoary, of four linear lanceolate pieces, two opposite 

 ones swollen at the base. Corolla of four obovate purple petals, entire, 

 or with a broad shallow notch, the claw yellow, slender, as long as the 

 calyx. Stamens with awl-shaped filaments, the longer ones somewhat 

 dilated towards the base. Anthers oblong, of two linear lobes. Fruit 

 a sub-cylindrical siliqua, frora two to three inches long, hoary, but 

 without any glands, crowned by the two lobed stigma, each lobe 

 having a broad scale at the back. Seeds numerous in each cell, pale 

 brown, with a thin white membranous margin, compressed, somewhat 

 concave on one side. Cotyledons accumbent. 



Habitat. ^Maritime cliffs near Hastings, but not wild; Venlor, Isle 

 of Wight. 

 Biennial or Perennial ; flowering in May and June. 



