284 SCROPHULARIACE^. Micranihemum. 



19. MICRANTHEMUM, Michx. (Composed of ^tnQog, small, and 

 avde^ov, flower.) — Creeping or depressed small (American) annuals, in mud or 

 shallow water, glabrous, branching, leafy throughout ; the leaves opposite, rounded 

 or spatulate, sessile, usually 3-5-nerved, entire. Flowers solitary in alternate 

 axils, white or purplish, inconspicuous. -^ Gray, Man. ed. 5, 330. Hemianthus^ 

 Nutt., includes the species with limb of corolla as it were halved, the upper lip 

 wanting or nearly so. 



M. orbiculatum, Michx. Creeping freely : leaves roundish, 2 to 4 lines long : pedi- 

 cels shorter than calyx : corolla white, hardly equalling the 4-cleft calyx ; its upper lip or 

 lobe manifest : stigma capitate. — Fl. i. 10, t. 2. M. emarginatum, Ell. Sk. i. 18. — N. Caro- 

 lina to Texas. (S. Am.) 



M. Nuttallii, Gray. Creeping, with ascending branches an inch or two high : leaves 

 oblong-spatulate or oval-obovate, 2 or 3 lines long : pedicels equalling the campanulate 

 4-toothed calyx : corolla purplish or white, with obsolete upper lip ; middle lobe of the 

 lower lip linear-oblong, nearly twice the length of the lateral ones: appendage of the 

 stamens nearly equalling the filament itself: stigma of 2 subulate lobes. — Man. ed. 5, 

 331. Herpestis mkrantha, Ell. Sk. il. 105? Hemianthus mia-anthemoldes, Nutt. in Jour. 

 Acad. Philad. i. 123, t. 6. — Tidal mud of rivers, New Jersey to Florida: fl. late summer 

 and autumn. 



20. AMPHIANTHUS, Torr. {Jinq)i, on both sides, avdog, a flower ; a 

 blossom produced both at base and apex of the stem.) — Single species. 



A. pusillus, Torr. A minute annual, glabrous, bearing a radical tuft of oblong or obo- 

 vate leaves (each a bne or two long) and a subsessile flower, also sending up a capillary 

 scape an inch or two high and terminated by another similar flower subtended by a pair of 

 leaves: corolla white. — Ann. Lye. N. Y. iv. 82; Benth. in DC 1. c. 425. — Shallow pools 

 on flat rocks, Upper Georgia, particularly on Stone Mountain, Leavenworth, Canby, &c. : 

 fl. early spring. 



21. LIMOS^LLA, L. Mud wort. (Lhnus, mud, and sella, seat.) — 

 Small annuals, or proliferous-perennial by stolons, glabrous (of wide distribution) ; 

 with fibrous roots and a cluster of entire fleshy leaves at the nodes of the stolons, 

 and short scape-like naked pedicels from the axils, bearing a small and white 

 or purplish flower, in summer. 



L. aquatica, L. Tufts an inch or two high : clustered leaves longer than the pedicels, 

 when scattered on sterile shoots alternate, in the typical form with a spatulate or oblong 

 blade on a distinct petiole ; this in mud rather short, in water elongating to the length of 2 

 to even 5 inches. — Reichenb. Ic. Germ. t. 1722.— From Hudson's Bay to S. Colorado and 

 the Sierra Nevada, California, in brackish mud, and in fresh water; also on the Pacific 

 coast 1 (Eu., N. Asia, Australia, S. Am.) 



Var. tenuif olia, Hofiin. Leaves subulate or filiform, with little or no distinction of 

 petiole and blade, seldom over an inch or so in length —Gray, Man. 1. c. ; Reichenb. Ic. 

 Germ. 1. c. L. ienui/oUa, Nutt. Gen. ii. 43. L. subulala, Ives in Am. Jour. Sci. i. 74, witli 

 plate. L. australis, R. Br. Prodr. 443. — Brackish river-banks and shores. Canada to New 

 Jersey. (S. Am., Australia, Eu., &c.) 



22. SCOPARIA, L. {Scopce, twigs used for brooms.) —Tropical Amer- 

 ican undershrubs or herbs, much branched ; with small and slender-pedicelled 

 flowers in the axils of the opposite and verticillate leaves. 



S. dulcis, L. Annual or suffrutescent, almost glabrous : leaves from oblong-spatulate to 

 narrowly lanceolate, tapering at base, the larger serrate and incised: sepals 4: corolla 

 white, 3 lines wide. — Lam. 111. t. 85. Gratiola mkrantha, Nutt. in Am. Jour. Sci. v. 2871 

 — S. Florida and perhaps on the Mexican border. (Mex., Trop. & Subtrop. Am., and now 

 in Asia, &c.) 



