PROPAGATION OF RUMEX ACETOSELtA L. 261 



it may be recognised at a glance. Stem from 12 to 18 in. high, 

 simple, or branched near the top, rather thick, slightly purpled 

 below, otherwise green throughout, clothed below with simple white 

 hairs and scattered stellate down, singularly devoid of sete, bearing 

 from three to nine heads. Peduncles rather thick and soft, almost 

 straight, densely floccose, with few scattered white hairs; set© 

 almost, and sometimes quite, absent. Involucre rounded at the 

 base, constricted above, dark green and hoary with white hairs 

 and stellate down ; set& very few- Phyllaries rather broad and 

 moderately acute. Ligules slightly pilose behind tbe tips. Styles 

 pure yellow. The outer radical leaves oval, apiculate and almost 

 entire; the inner ovate, more acute, and slightly toothed at the 

 base; all abruptly narrowed to a short shaggy petiole; rather 

 thick, yellowish grass-green above, paler beneath, and clothed oil 

 both surfaces with rough hairs, the whole forming a neat semi- 

 prostrate rosette. There is always a large, shortly- stalked, acute 

 and sharply-toothed stem-leaf, and sometimes a second one of a 

 bract-like nature. Under cultivation the peduncles become almost 

 white with floccose down, the radical leaves large and luxuriant, 

 and the heads very numerous, but in other respects it maintains 

 its very distinctive appearance. Its nearest ally is, perhaps, H. 

 Pictorum Linton. 



(To be continued. 



PEOPAGATION OF RUMEX ACETO SELLA L. 



By Edward F. Linton, M.A. 



This plant has a mode of reproducing itself which is not at all 

 usual, and yet I do not remember to have seen any description of 

 it, nor is it referred to as peculiar in any Flora that I have at hand. 

 The roots form the best character for distinguishing it from the only 

 similar British species, and yet in five British or European Floras 

 I have looked into they are not mentioned ; two others give " roots 

 creeping"; and one (Hooker's Students' Flora) describes the root- 

 stock as " creeping, much branched." This touches on the truth, 

 yet gives no idea of the extensive ramifications of the rootstock. or 

 of its proliferous capabilities. The rootstock is in fact a slender 

 rhizome or underground stem, lying from | in. to 2 m. beneath the 

 soil, branching at irregular intervals, sometimes dichotomously, but 

 more often laterally, and extending itself at the extremity of its 

 main prolongation and branches with much rapidity. The measure- 

 ment of a year's growth cannot be easily ascertained, as the rhizome 

 is subperennial ; but in light soil, where it is free to spread itself, 

 two or three feet appears to be no uncommon development for a 

 rhizome which has not lost power by bifurcation ; and the year's 

 growth seems to be accompanied by the production in the same 

 year of numerous branches, all creeping horizontally, extending 

 from a few inches to a couple of feet in length. 



