56 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



GENUS II.—Z ANNICHELLIA. Linn. 



Flowers solitary or in pairs, monojcious or polygamous, sessile or 

 subsessile, axillary, issuing from a sheathing bract. Male flowers 

 destitute of a perianth: stamen 1; filament filiform; anther 2- or 4- 

 celled. Female or perfect flowers with a membranous campanulate 

 perianth surrounding the base of the ovary; stamen 1 or none: 

 ovary free, of 4 (rarely 2, 3, 5, or 6) separate 1-celled and 1-ovuled 

 carpels; style short; stigma peltate. Fruit of 4 (rarely 2, 3, 5, or G) 

 subdrupaceous elongated incurved achenes. 



A slender herb, growing in fresh or brackish water, with narrowly 

 linear or linear-filiform alternate parallel-veined submerged translu- 

 cent leaves, and membranous amplexicaul stipules. 



The name of this genus of plants was given to it in honour of Zannichclli, an 

 Italian botanist and naturalist, who published a history of plants, and flourished 

 about 1702. 



SPECIES I.-ZANNICHELLIA PALUSTRIS. Linn.' 

 Plates MCCCCXKV. MCCCCXXVI. 

 Tlie only known species. 



SnB-SpEciEs (?) I.— Zannichellia eu-palustris. 



Plate MCCCCXXV. 



mich. To. El. Germ, et Hclv. Vol. Vn. Tab. XVI. Fig. 24 



BlUot, EI. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1068. 



Z. palustris, Fries, Mant. i. p. 16. Koch, Syn. El. Germ, et Hclv. ed. ii. p. 782. 



Z. palustris, var. a, Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. cd. vi. p. 367. Rooh. & Am. Brit. El. ed. 



viii. p. 485. 

 Z. Bonn. C. J. Earim. Skand. El. ed. ix. p. 216. 



Nuts subsessile, spreading, smooth or bluntly crenulated but 

 scarcely winged on the back ; beak half as long as the rest of the fruit. 



In ditches, pools, and lakes. Common in England. Rather rare, 

 but widely distributed in Scotland, extending to Orkney. Not 

 unfrequent throughout Ireland. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer, Autumn. 



Stems very slender, filiform, branched, rooting, at least at the lower 

 nodes. Leaves 1 to 3 inches long, all submerged, alternate or oppo- 

 site, narrowly linear or capillary. Stipules large, scarious, free from 

 the leaves, soon disappearing. Flowers very minute, submerged, 

 axillary, subsessile, enveloped in the stipules, which perform the oltice 



