POLTGAXACE^. 39 



several diverging flowering shoots with elliptical leaves, which 

 become abruptly much smaller and narrower than those below 

 them. Central bract longer than the pedicel when the flower is 

 fuUy expanded. Calyx wings very broadly obovate, as broad as the 

 fruit and longer than it, with the central nerve distinct, giving off 

 a little beyond the middle a branch, which generally anastomoses 

 with the very faint lateral nerves ; the latter with numerous free 

 branches on the outside (these last seldom anastomose). Strophiole 

 of the seed with the lobes unequal, the lateral ones nearly half the 

 length of the seed. 



On chalky debris. Local. Abundant about Cuxton and Boxley, 

 Kent ; Blandford, Dorset ; Eeigate Hills and Hogsback, Surrey ; 

 Pangbourne, Berkshire ; Cotswold Hills, Gloucester ; and also 

 reported from Wiltshire. 



England. Perennial. Summer. 



Plant growing in lax, straggling tufts, with slender wiry pro- 

 cumbent flexuous stems, 2 to 6 inches long in the larger examples ; 

 the stems are leafless at the base, but clothed with broadly oval- 

 obovate leaves about -| inch long for the last inch or so of each 

 primary stem, from the apex of which (in those stems which flower) 

 1 to 6 ascending flowering shoots with narrowly lanceolate or 

 elliptical leaves are produced, and thus appear to rise from a 

 stalked rosette. Flowers bright blue, pink, or white, about ^ inch 

 long, in short blunt compact terminal racemes of 6 to 12 flowers, 

 becoming more lax in fruit. Sepals very broadly ovate, suddenly 

 contracted towards the base so as to be almost spathulate, about as 

 broad as the capsule and considerably longer, with the central 

 vein alone conspicuous, and frequently the anastomosis between 

 its branches and the lateral veins is not complete. Capsule in- 

 versely deltoid - roundish, suddenly narrowed towards the base, 

 surrounded by a very broad wing, which has a small notch at the 

 apex. Seeds oblong-ovoid, with the lateral lobes of the strophiole 

 reaching half-way down, and consequently longer than those of 

 P. vulgaris. Plant deeji shining green, glabrous. 



This appears to have no connecting links with any of the forms 

 of P. vulgaris, none of which have the flowering shoots proceeding 

 from the axils of the leaves of a rosette, as in the present species. 

 Late in the summer the leaves of the rosette usually decay, but the 

 umbellate arrangement of the flowering shoots still remains, and is 

 more distinct than in the forms of P. dejiressa, in which it sometimes 

 occurs. The branches of the rootstock are much less distinctly woody 

 th-an in P. eu-vulgaris, and in this respect approach P. depressa ; but 

 in that form the stems do not grow in compact tufts or cushions. The 

 flowers of this plant are usually in shorter and more ovoid racemes, 



