460 MTOSURUS. {class v. order VII. 



late, pale green, somewhat fleshy, single ribbed, with an acute or 

 bluntish point, and tapering at the base into a long footstalk. Scape 

 erect, round, snaootb, slender, green, longer than the leaves, bearing a 

 single small pale green terminal ^o?i;er. Calyx of five pieces, gibbous 

 at the base, or elongated into a spur-like appendage, the upper part 

 lanceolate, single ribbed, somewhat fleshy. Corolla of five white or 

 reenish petals, with a dilated limb and long filiform tubular claw. 

 Stamens various, mostly five, with narrow yellow two celled anthers. 

 Sti[/mas' soVitsnj, small, sessile. Receptacle at fii'st included within the 

 flower, crowded with numerous oblong germens, afterwards elongating 

 to from one to three inches, much resembling in its round tapering 

 form a mouse's tail. Germens somewhat triangular, very much 

 crowded, each single seeded. 



Habitat. — Corn fields and waste places, especially in a gravelly or 

 sandy soil ; in England not very common, doubtful if found in Scot- 

 land, and not known in Ireland. 

 Annual ; flowering in May. 



A curious little plant, well characterised by its generic name of 

 Mouse-tail, which it much resembles in the columnar form of its 

 receptacle, especially when the seeds are ripe, and the great number 

 of seeds which each plant produces, these being not unfrequenlly 

 from two to three hundred. 



