POLYGALACEjE 93 



Viola sylvatica Fries. Common Wood Violet. (Plate VII.) 



Leaves ovate, heart-shaped, acuminate, glabrous or with 

 scattered hairs. Petals oblong, lilac or violet, the lower one 

 shaded with darker colour. Stigma hairy on both sides and slightly 

 arched beneath the top. Stipules linear-lanceolate, fringed-ciliate. 

 Capsule glabrous. 



Woods, thickets, etc., up to 5000 feet in Switzerland and to 6000 

 feet in the Eastern Pyrenees. April, May. 



Distribution. — Europe, Asia from Siberia to Japan, Algeria, 

 Canary Isles. British. 



POLYGALACE^ 



A family represented in Europe only by Polygala itself. The other 

 genera being chiefly tropical and differ from Polygala in the form 

 of the fruit, or, in minor details, in the structure of their flowers. 



Polygala Linn. 



Herbs or shrubs, with entire leaves, usually alternate, no stipules, 

 and very irregular flowers in terminal racemes. Sepals 5, of which 

 the two inner are larger, usually petal-like, and commonly called 

 wings. Petals 3, 4, or 5, the lowest very small and subulate, and 

 all more or less united with the stamens. Stamens united in two 

 parcels. Style i, with a single stigma. Ovary and capsule flat, 

 2-ceUed, with a single pendulous seed in each cell. 



A numerous genus, widely spread over most parts of the globe. 

 Some of the showy S. African species are often cultivated in our 

 greenhouses. 



Polygala Chamcebuxus L. (Plate V.) 



Stem shrubby, creeping, branched ; branches prostrate or 

 ascending, glabrous like the whole plant. Leaves narrowly lanceo- 

 late or elliptical, entire, mucronate, the lower ones smaller, obovate. 

 Flowers solitary or in pairs, terminal, or in the axils of the leaves. 

 CoroUa with a small, 4-lobed crest, as long as or shorter than the 

 wing-sepals, which are ovate, oblique, erect or recurved, nerveless, 

 with branched veins. Wings pale yellow before fertilization, often 

 red, brownish or purple later. Corolla tube deep yellow, but pur- 

 plish after fertilization. 



Woods and rocky or grassy places in the mountains, extending 

 up to the Alpine region, where it is usually dwarfer and more 

 floriferous. Very common. A difficult plant to get up by the long, 

 slender roots, for they penetrate long distances, and yet there is 

 little of them to survive a journey to this country. May to July. 



Distribution.— CentT3l Europe from the Eastern Pyrenees to 

 Roumania. Rare in the Jura. 



