> 
74 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
shining, pitchy black. Plant bright green, the leaves sometimes 
turning purplish or red in autumn. The much larger fruit is sufficient 
to distinguish small specimens of P, mite from large ones of P. minus. 
Lax-flowered Persicaria 
German, Milder Knéterich. 
SPECIES X—POLYGONUM PERSICARIA. Lim. 
Prares MCCXXXVIL. MCCXXXVIIL. 
Billot, Fl. Gall. et Germ. Exsice. No. 1063. 
Annual. Stem erect or ascending, sometimes geniculate and rooting 
at the very base, more or less swollen at the nodes, branched. Leaves 
shortly stalked, elliptical or lanceolate-elliptical. Ochres rather loose, 
all strongly fringed with rather short weak bristles. Spikes oblong or 
cylindrical, solitary or in pairs at the extremity of the stem and 
branches, racemose or racemoso-paniculate, short, dense, thick, con- 
tiguous, or more rarely elongate, and rather thin, lax at the 
base, sometimes leafless or with a single leaf at the base, straight, erect 
or slightly drooping. Peduncles glabrous, rarely with a few incon- 
spicuous glands; pedicels shorter than or equalling the nut, articulated 
immediately below the perianth, without glands. Perianth coloured, 
without glands, or with a very few minute ones, generally without pro- 
minent veins. Stamens 6. Styles 2 or 3, combined half-way up. Nut 
rather longer than the perianth; those of the 2-styled flowers ovate- 
roundish, plano-convex, very finely shagreened, shining: those of the 
3-styled flowers bluntly trigonous, not compressed, with the 3 faces 
round; sometimes all the flowers 2-styled and with flat nuts. Leaves 
with minute dots, but no superficial glands; ochrew not glandular. 
Var. a, genuinum 
Prats MCCXXXVIL. 
Stem slightly enlarged at the nodes. Ochrew rather tight. Spikes 
not agglomerated even when young; in fruit oblong, short, dense. 
Pedicels shorter than the nut. 
Var. 2, elatum. Gren. and Godr. 
Prats MCCXXXVILL, 
P. biforme, Wahl. Fries, Mant. ii. p. 28. 
P. nodosum, Pers., Meisn. in D.C. Prod. Vol. XIV. p.118(?) (Excl. Syn.): 
Stem generally enlarged at the nodes. Ochre loose. Spikes when 
young agglomerated into a thyrsus ; in fruit cylindrical, elongate, 
