POLYGONACEZ. (ies: 
rather lax, sometimes slightly drooping. Pedicels as long as the nut. 
Plant usually much larger than in var. a. 
Var. « in damp places and by the sides of ditches, in meadows and 
cultivated ground. Very common, and generally distributed. Var. 6 
rare. In cultivated ground and wet places. I have only seen it from 
Battersea Fields, and elsewhere about the neighbourhood of London. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Annual. Summer, Autumn. 
Var. a has the stem 9 inches to 2 feet high, generally red, more 
rarely spotted. Leaves 2 to 4 inches long, attenuated at each end, 
but sometimes rather more towards the apex than the base. Spikes 
3 to 1} inch long, the terminal ones stalked, often in pairs of unequal 
length, the axillary ones stalked or sessile, solitary. Perianth about 
4 inch long, bright rose, more rarely pure white. Nut 3 inch long, 
appearing punctured only under a strong lens, black, very shining, 
the greater number of nuts compressed, but always a few with 3 blunt 
edges. Leaves green, generally with a black blotch in the middle of 
the upper surface, usually minutely pubescent beneath, sometimes 
quite hoary with short cottony hairs. Pedicels sometimes slightly 
hairy, but almost always destitute of glands. Flowers of a brighter 
red or purer white than any of the other species of the section Persi- 
caria, except P. amphibium, which has the rose colour mucli paler. 
The dense continuous spikes distinguish this from the P. mite, which 
in other respects it resembles. 
Var. 6 is a much larger plant, so like some of the varieties of 
P. lapathifolium that it is only by observing the absence of conspicuous 
glands on the peduncles, perianth, and leaves, and the plano-convex nuts, 
that it can be distinguished from the latter. Spikes 1 to 2 inches long, 
lax. The stem is much more enlarged at the nodes than in var. «; 
the ochree shorter and wider; the leaves broader in proportion, some- 
times 6 inches long. Perianth often dull pink or flesh colour, though 
sometimes as bright as that of the more common form. 
This appears to be the P. nodosum of Persoon and Meisner, and all 
those botanists who refer that name to a plant allied to P. Persicaria 
rather than to P. lapathifolium. 
Spotted Persicaria. 
French, Renowée persicaire. German, Gemeiner Knéterich, 
SPECIES X1.-—-POLYGONUM LAPATHIFOLIUM. Lim. 
Prattes MCCXXXIX. MCCXL. 
Annual. Stem erect or ascending, sometimes geniculate and rooting 
at the very base, greatly swollen and branched. Leaves lanceolate or 
elliptical-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, shortly stalked. Ochre rather 
loose; the lower ones not ciliated, the upper ones generally fringed 
L2 
