802 
ON ERYTHR#HA CAPITATA, Wu1., 
var. SPHAROCEPHALA. 
By F. Townsenp, M.A., F.L.S. 
o summers have passed since the attention of. botanists was 
first called to the Freshwater H'rythrea in the pages of this Journal 
for 1879 (p. 327), and I have since described this plant as Hrythrea 
capitata var. spherocephala (Journ. Bot. 1881, p. 87, and Journ. of 
i oc., June, 1881). Unfortunately I have been unable to 
visit the locality again during the flowering season, but this year I 
have seen it in excellent fruit, and have secured a collection of fruit 
tion 
downs, where the turf is shortest and sweetest, thus causing speci- 
mens of luxuriant growth to be liable to be cropped by sheep, and 
ore 
than about a quarter to one inch. In less exposed spots the species 
i e 
gathered, the stems of which, four in number, arising from the 
crown of the root, are about three inches high, and are overtopped 
by the long naked stalked secondary flowering tufts which are so 
peculiarly characteristic of the species. 
n fruit the species is very easily distinguished from E. Cen- 
taurium, E.. littoralis, or E. pulchella. The corolla-tube of E. capi- 
tata does not grow and lengthen with the growth of the ovary after 
owering. At the time of flowering a portion of the ovary is 
The corolla-tube is not narrowed at the top, either in flower or in 
fruit; indeed it could not be, because both the ovary and the 
rolla-tube grows and lengthens with the growth of the ovary, 
which is included within the corolla-tube at the time of flowering, 
and the capsule, when ripe, is also wholly included ; the corolla- 
tube is narrowed over the top of the ovary, and even more 
evidently over the top of the capsule, above which sit the shrivelled 
corolla-segments. 
I have not been able to ascertain whether EZ. capitata is still to 
be found on the downs of Newhaven, but its occurrence there led 
