POLYGONACEE. 
-~T 
2] 
Vv 
are certainly never large fovea-like glands as on the perianth P. 
Hydropiper. 
Small Persicaria. 
French, Renouée fluette. German, Kleiner Knéterich. 
SPECIES IX—POLYGONUM MITE. Schrank. 
Prats MCCXXXVI. 
Billot, Fl. Gall. et Germ. Exsice. No. 1064. 
P. dubium, Stein. Gren. & Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. III. p. 48. 
Annual. Stem erect, sometimes geniculate and rooting at the very 
base, slightly swollen at the nodes, branched. Leaves subsessile, 
elliptical or lanceolate-elliptical. Ochree rather loose, all ciliated 
with long and short weak bristles. Spikes solitary (rarely in pairs) 
at the extremity of the stem and branches, racemose or racemoso- 
paniculate, long, slender, lax, interrupted and leafy at the base, 
contiguous and leafless at the apex (rarely wholly contiguous and 
leafless), straight, erect or ascending. Pedicels about as long as 
the nut, articulated immediately below the perianth, without glands. 
Perianth coloured, without glands or prominent veins. Stamens 5, 
rarely 6. Styles 2 or 3, combined half-way up. Nut as long as the 
perianth; that of the 2-styled flowers roundish-oval, plano-convex, 
faintly shagreened, shining; those of the 3-styled flowers bluntly 
trigonous, compressed. Leaves and ochre without superficial glands. 
Plant insipid. 
In wet places, especially by the sides of rivers; local, but probably 
often passed over as P. Persicaria. It is common in Surrey by the 
Thames and its tributaries, and it certainly occurs in Middlesex, 
Essex, Cambridge, Hunts, Northampton, and Yorkshire. It appears 
to be absent from both Scotland and Ireland. 
England. Annual. Late Summer, Autumn. 
Stem 1 to 2 feet high, and with more virgate branches than in any 
of the preceding species of the section Persicaria. Leaves, inclusive 
of the very short petiole, 2 to 4 inches long, serrulated with rather 
longer bristles than in P. minus and P. Hydropiper. Ochrezee mem- 
branous, white, ciliated in the same manner as the two preceding 
species, the floral ones often purplish. Spikes thicker than in P. minus 
and P. Hydropiper, 1 to 4 inches long; in the latter case with the lower 
whorls much separated, and 1 or 2 of them having a leaf at the base. 
Perianth } inch long, pale rose or white, often tinged with grecn. 
Nut {inch long, appearing shagreened under a lens, but distinctly. 
VoL. VIII. L 
