Myoawrus.] hanunculace^e. U 



13. E. arvensis, L. Corn Crowfoot. Vect. Devil's Claws. 

 " Calyx spreading, stem erect many-flowered, leaves 3-cleft their 

 lobes generally again 3-cleft into linear entire or bi-tridentate 

 segments, achenes margined muricated." — Br. Fl. p. 10. E. B. 

 t. 185. 



In arable land, amongst corn, &c., far too prevalent. Fl. May — July. Ft. 

 July, August. 0. 



i. Med. — About Ryde, common. Fields above E. Cowes, and various parts of 

 that neighbourhood. Cornfield by Preston farm. 



W. Med. — Cornfields between Yarmouth and Shalfleet. Common about New- 

 port, Gatcombe, Freshwater, and most other places. 



Root consisting of many tapering, simple or somewhat branched fibres. Stem 

 solitary, or in luxuriant plants several, erect, from 8 — 10 or 20 inches high, terete 

 or obscurely angular, leafy, hollow in the centre, waved, paniculately dicholomous, 

 the branches more or less erect or patent, and together with the entire upper part 

 of the stem sparsely pubescent, the lower part of the stem glabrous or nearly so. 

 Leaves alternate, suberect, those at the base and inferior part of the stem on 

 moderately short footstalks, which rapidly shorten in the succeeding leaves into 

 their short clasping bases, or becoming nearly sessile ; root-leaves one or two, 

 small, soon withering, the primary ones simple, cuneate, ovate or oblong, .3- or 

 5-cleft at summit or trifid, the segments entire or toothed ; the rest ternately pin- 

 natisected, the primary segments remote, stalked and again cut into oblong or 

 wedge-shaped, deeply cleft lobes, the terminal segment for the most part I'cgu- 

 larly trifid, the lateral pair less so. XoJes unequal, attenuated downwards. Con- 

 fluent but not stalked, bifid or trifid. Petioles semiterete, glabrous or a little 

 hairy, obanuelled above, dilated and clasping at base, with membranous cili- 

 ated edges. Peduncles solitary, opposite the leaves, axillary or terminal, single- 

 flowered, lax and somewhat drooping in flower, firmer and widely spreading in 

 fruit, roughish with ascending pubescence, as long as or longer than the leaves. 

 Flowers small, about half an inch or less across. Cahjx about two-thirds the 

 length of the petals, caducous. Sepals spreading, obovate-oblong, faintly 3-nerved, 

 with pale, flattish, dilated margins. Petals lemon-yellow, not nincb spreading, 

 obovate, very entire, venoso-striate, a little shining within, furnished almost at the 

 very point of the claw with a large and broad scale (nectary, Sm.) of a roundish 

 obcordate or fan-shaped figure, covering a glandular pore. Stamens not nume- 

 rous, a little incurved ; anthers linear-elliptical, shorter than the filaments ; pollen 

 large, spherical, pale yellow. Carpels few (about 8 or 9), collected into a loose 

 subglobose head, sessile, glabrous, semiorbicular, much compressed, miu-icated 

 laterally with conical tubercular aculei hooked at the apex, the marginal row 

 largest and longest, each carpel ending in a straight, conical, compressed beak. 



The possession of the acrid and poisonous properties of its tribe in a high 

 degree, in conjunction with the large prickly pericarps, has doubtless obtained for 

 this plant the opprobrious name it bears amongst us of Devil's Claws. It is a most 

 troublesome weed in our cornfields, which it often completely over-runs. 



VI. Myosueus, Linn. Mouse-tail. 



Calyx of 5 sepals produced or spurred at the base. Petals 5, 

 with long slender tubular claws. Carpels imperfectly dehiscent, 

 closely imbricated, on an elongated subulate receptacle. Seed 

 pendulous ; embryo inverted, with the radicle superior. 



Little annual herbs, of which only two species are known ; found in Europe, 

 Asia and America, having quite the habit of Ranunculus, but in the spurred 

 calyx, tubular petals and somewhat dehiscent carpels clearly betraying the afiinity 

 of Myosurus with genera arranged under the succeeding tribe of Helleboreae. 



