574 POLYGONUM. [CLASS VIII. ORDER II. 



times simple, and mostly swollen at the joints. Leaves alternate, 

 lanceolate or ovate lanceolate, smooth and shining, the margins waved, 

 mostly rough, with a few short hristles. Inflorescence slender, terminal, 

 and axillary pendulous spikes of distant nearly sessile flowers, of a 

 greenish white or reddish colour, from the axis of smooth sheathing 

 scarcely ciliated bractea. Perianth ovate, cleft about half way down 

 into four obtuse segments, and rough, with small pellucid globose 

 glands, rarely smooth, and sometimes five-cleft. Stamens shorter 

 than the perianth, with simple filaments, and yellow ovate anthers, 

 the styles longer than the stamens, united half way up, the stigmas 

 globose, fleshy. Fruit ovate, compressed, as large as the perianth, a 

 dark reddish black, pointed with the persistent base of the style, and 

 rough with minute dots. 



Habitat. — Ditches, the banks of streams and watery places ; common 

 everywhere. 



Annual ; flowering in August and September. 



Biting Persicaria, or Water Pepper, is a hot acrid plant, producing, 

 when bruised and applied to the skin, inflammation and blisters. Its 

 juice, which has a hot acrid taste, resides in the small glands; these are 

 more or less abundantly scattered over the whole plant, and the seeds 

 are so pungent as to be used as a substitute for pepper, as we are 

 informed by Bulliard, in some of the provinces of France. The juice 

 has been recommended as possessing aperient and diuretic virtues, 

 and to be useful in scurvy and afi'ections of the kidneys. 



8. P. mi'nus, Huds. (Fig. 654.) Small-creeping Persicaria. Spike 

 slender, lax, erect, interrupted ; flowers pentandrous, smooth ; styles 

 united ; leaves linear, lanceolate, very shortly petiolated ; stipules 

 nearly smooth, the margin ciliated, with numerous long hairs. 



English Botany, t. 1043.— English Flora, vol. ii. p. 235. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. T87. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 212. 



Root of whorled fibres, and creeping underground stems. Stem, 

 erect, or curved at the base, and rooting from the lower joints, branched 

 from the base, round, smooth, and swelled at the joints, mostly tinged 

 of a pinkish colour. Leaves narrow, linear, lanceolate, plane, gradually 

 tapering to the point, sessile, or with a very sheirt footstalk, the mid-rib 

 slender, with scarcely any lateral veins, smooth, except a few rough 

 hairs on the margins. Inflorescence terminal and lateral, spikes 

 slender, filiform, erect, or slightly drooping, smooth, of a few distant 

 flowers, of a greenish white or pink colour. Perianth of five oblong 

 segments, deeply cleft, smooth from the base, of a sheathing bractea, 

 smooth and ribbed, or scattered over with a few close pressed hairs, 

 the margin copiously ciliated with long hairs. Stamens five, shorter 

 than the perianth, with simple filaments, the anthers ovate, yellow. 

 Styles entirely united, bearing two or three capitate stigmas, globose, 

 fleshy. Fruit as long as the perianth, ovate, compressed, or triangular, 

 black. 



