126 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



seeds are also rounder and more distinctly tuberculated. The plant 

 is of a deep green colour. 



Knotted Spnrrey, Sand Cliickioeed. 



French, SpargotUe Nodeuae. German, Knotige Sagiiie. 



Sub-Order III.— POLYCAEPEiE.* 



Sepals, stamens, and ovary sessile within the calyx. Styles 

 free or combined at the base, 3, 4, or 5. Leaves mth scarious 

 stipules at the base. 



GENUS ZIII.—S P E R G U L A. Zinn. 



Sepals 5, spreading in flower. Petals 5, entire. Stamens 10 

 or 5. Styles 5 (rarely 3). Capsule longer than the sepals, splitting 

 into 5 valves opposite the sepals (into 3 in the species which has 

 3 styles). Seeds coal-black, globular - compressed or orbicular- 

 reniform, surrounded by a keel which is generally more or less 

 produced into a membranous whitish wing round the seed. 



Annuals with geniculate ascending stems and opposite filiform- 

 linear leaves, having between them small scarious stipules, of which 

 the two on each side are united into one. Leaves with fascicles of 

 similar leaves in the axils, giving an appearance of their being 

 in whorls. Flowers white, in dichotomous cymes, of which the 

 branches are most frequently reduced to false unilateral racemes 

 somewhat resembling those of Boraginaceae. Pruit pedicels 

 reflexed. 



The name of this genus is from spargere, to scatter, because it scatters its seeds 

 abroad with an elastic force, to the gi-eat profit, it is said, of the farmer in Holland 

 where the species grow most abundantly. 



SPECIES I.— SPERGULA ARVENSIS. Linn. 

 Plates CCLII. CCLIII. 



Leaves semi-cylindrical above, having a shallow longitudinal 

 furrow beneath. Styles and valves of the capsule 5. Seeds globular- 

 lenticular, rough, with small tubercles puckered at the base, 



* The presence of stipules is surely a better character for this sub-order than the 

 union of the styles at the base. 



