284 SCROPHULARIACE^. Micrantliemum. 



19. MICRANTHEMUM, Michx, (Composed of ^i-AQOi, small, and 

 avdifiov, flower.) — Creepiug or depressed small (American) annuals, in mud or 

 shallow water, glabrous, branching, leafy throughout ; the leaves opposite, rounded 

 or spatulate, sessile, usually 3-5-nerved, entire. Flowers solitary in alternate 

 axils, white or purplish, inconspicuous. — Gray, Man. ed. 5, 330. Hemianthus, 

 Nutt., includns the species with limb of corolla as it were halved, the upper lip 

 wanting or nearly so. 



M. orbioulatum, Michx. Creeping freely : leaves roundish, 2 to 4 lines long : pedi- 

 cels sliorter tlian calyx : corolla white, hardly equalling the 4-clef t calyx ; its upper lip or 

 lobe manifest : stigma capitate. — Fl. i. 10, t. 2. M. emarginatum, Ell. Sk. 1. 18. — N. Caro- 

 lina to Texas. (S. Am.) 



M. Nuttallii, Gray. Creeping, with a'scending branches an inch or two high : leaves 

 oblong-spatulate or oval-obovate, 2 or 3 lines long : pedicels equalling the campanulate 

 4-toothed calyx : corolla purplish or white, with obsolete upper lip ; middle lobe of the 

 lower lip linear-oblong, nearly twice the length of the lateral ones : appendage of the 

 stamens nearly equalling the filament itself : stigma of 2 subulate lobes. — Man. ed. 5, 

 331. Herpestis micrantha, Ell. Sk. ii. 105 1 Hemianthus micranthemoides, Nutt. in Jour. 

 Acad. Philad. i. 123, t. 6. — Tidal mud of rivers. New Jersey to Florida ; fl. late summer 

 and autumn. 



20. AMPHIANTHUS, Torr. (Jificpi, on both sides, uvdog, a flower ; a 

 blossom produced both at base and apex of the stem.) — Single species. 



A. pusfllus, Torr. A minute annual, glabrous, bearing a radical tuft of oblong or obo- 

 vate leaves (each a line or two long) and a subsessile flower, also sending up a capillary 

 scape an inch or two high and terminated by another similar flower subtended by a pair of 

 leaves; corolla white. — Ann. Lye. N. Y. iv. 82; Benth. in DC. 1. c. 425. — Shallow pools 

 on flat rocks. Upper Georgia, particularly on Stone Mountain, Leavenworth, Canby, &o. : 

 fl. early spring. 



21. LiIMOS£lLLA, L. Mudwobt. (imiw, mud, and sella, seat.) — 

 Small annuals, or proliferous-perennial by stolons, glabrous (of wide distribution) ; 

 with fibrous roots and a cluster of entire fleshy leaves at the nodes of the stolons, 

 and short scape-like naked pedicels from the axils, bearing a small and white 

 or purplish flower, in summer. 



" L. aquatica, L. Tufts an inch or two high : clustered leaves longer than the pedicels, 

 when scattered on sterile shoots alternate, in the typical form with a 'spatulate or oblong 

 blade on a distinct petiole ; this in mud rather short, in water elongating to the length of 2 

 to even 5 inches. — Reichenb. Ic. Germ. t. 1722. — From Hudson's Bay to S. Colorado and 

 the Sierra Nevada, California, in brackish mud, and in fresh water ; also on the Pacific 

 coast ■? (Eu., N. Asia, Australia, S. Am.) 



"• Var. tenuif olia, Hoflftn. Leaves subulate or filiform, with little or no distinction of 

 petiole and blade, seldom over an inch or so in length. — Gray, Man. 1. c. ; Reichenb. Ic. 

 Germ. 1. c. L. tenuifoUa, Nutt. Gen. ii. 43. L. subtdata, Ives in Am. Jour. Sci. i. 74, with 

 plate. L. australis, B. Br. Prodr. 443. — Braokisli river-banks and shores. Canada to New 

 Jersey. (S. Am., Australia, Eu., &c.) 



22. SCOPARIA, L. (Scopce, twigs used for brooms.) — Tropical Amer- 

 ican undershrubs or herbs, much branched ; with small and slender-pedicelled 

 flowers in the axils of the opposite and verticillate leaves. 



S. dulcis, L. Annual or suffrutescent, almost glabrous : leaves from oblong-spatulate to 

 narrowly lanceolate, tapering at base, the larger serrate and incised: sepals 4: corolla 

 white, 3 Hues wide. — Lam. 111. t. 85. Gmtiohi micrantha, Nutt. in Am. Jour. Sci. v. 287 ? 

 — S. Florida and perhaps on the Mexican border. (Mex., Trop. & Subtrop. Am., and now 

 in Asia, &c. ) 



