10 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



while, on the other hand, no one seems to have produced the 

 garden form from var. a. The flowers of var. £ are rather paler, 

 and considerably larger than in var. « ; the pods 1 to li inch long; 

 seeds with a tuft of pure white hairs. 



Wild French- Willow, Bose-Bay; 



French, fipilobe en fijri. German, Schiudblattriger Schotenweiderich. 

 The pretty purplish-red, or we may say Magenta-coloured flowers of this plant are 

 known to all who own a piece of garden-ground, and some may have discovered that, 

 showy and pleasing as are the blossoms, it is troublesome in a garden, as it spreads 

 very rapidly, and is difficult to extirpate. In its native situations it is very beautiful ; 

 its willow-like leaves and bright flowers adorn many a wayside bank and inaccessible 

 crag in the summer months of the year. Every piece of the running root will grow, 

 and being very brittle, it is easily distributed accidentally, while the downy seeds are 

 often drifted for miles by the wind. The cottony fibres which surround the seeds have 

 given rise to many suggestions as to their use in the arts, and some experiments have 

 been tried with them : but it is found that they are too short and brittle to be of any 

 real value, although Withering tells us that they have been used mixed with cotton or 

 fur and woven into stockings and other articles. The Willow-herb is one of the plants 

 whose leaves are found in English adulterations of tea. The leaves form a wholesome 

 vegetable when boiled, and the young shoots or suckers are a substitute for asparagus. 

 The Kamtchatkans make a kind of beer from the young shoots and the pith, which they 

 drink with the juice of Agaricus muscarius for the purpose of intoxication. Vinegar 

 is also made by fermenting this beer. 



Section II.— LYSIMACHION. Tansch. 

 Flowers regular, funnel-shaped. Limb of the calyx with the 

 segments united for a short distance at the base. Petals obcordate, 

 all similar and ecpiidistant. Stamens and styles erect. Lower 

 leaves opposite or in whorls of 3, but a greater or less number of 

 the upper ones alternate. 



SPECIES III.-EPILOBIUM HIRSUTUM. Linn. 

 Plate CCCCXCVII. 

 Stolons subterranean, appearing in summer, and then thick, 

 fleshy* with the leaves represented by opposite distant white 

 fleshy scales. Stem erect, branched, round, without evident raised 

 lines, pilose. Leaves on the stem and branches nearly all opposite, 

 sessile, oblong-lanceolate, rounded and semi-amplcxicaul at the 

 base with the auricles adhering to the stem, finely and remotely 

 serrate. Bracts alternate, resembling the leaves. Flowers very 

 numerous, in racemes which terminate the stem and branches. 

 Calyx-segments oblong, acute. Petals nearly as broad as Ion-, 

 twice as long as the calyx-segments. Stigma -i-partite, with the 



