Chelidonium.] papaverace^. 2a 



the point as in Chelidonium), Seeds numerous, rotundato-renifovm, blackish or 

 reddish brown or ash-gray, without a caruncle, beautifully ribbed longitudinally 

 with connecting costEe dividing the interstices into shallow quadrangular cells, 

 more or less immersed in the corky mass connecting the narrow dissepiments that 

 are placed between the valves, which separate from them, as they do from one ano- 

 ther, by the falling out of the interposed spongy placentEe when the seeds are ripe. 



Dr. Rutty, in his ' Natural History of the County of Dublin,' vol. i. p. 172, 

 gives a ludicrous account from the ' Philosophical Transactions ' of the effect pro- 

 duced upon some persons partaking of a pie made with the roots of this" plant 

 through mistake for those of Eryngo. 



The flowers, Mr. Pamplin observes, vary occasionally in colour, at times 

 approaching to that of the Greek G. fulvum. 



III. Chelidonium, Linn. Celandine. 



" Sepals 2. Petals 4. Stigma 2-lobed. Pod superior, linear, 

 1-celled, 2-valved, valves separating from the base upwards. 

 Seeds crested." — Br. Fl. 



1. C. majus, L. Common Celandine. Swalloio-wort. — Br. Fl. 

 p. 18. E. B. t. 1581. 



In waste ground, amongst rubbish, on old walls and shady hedgebanks, not 

 very commonly, and generally near habitations. Fl. May— August. Fr. July. 

 %■ 



E. Med. — In the garden -hedge at the back of a cottage between Godshill and 

 Saynham. In a cottage-garden hedge close to Merry-Garden farm near Shank- 

 lin. In the lane between Nettleston green and Fairyhill. Common at New- 

 church. Sandown. Upper Bordwood. Near Ventnor. 



W. Med. — Grounds at Northcourt, Shorwell. Hedge near Schoolhouse green, 

 and between Freshwater church and the bridge. Near Plash, at the turning off 

 from the road to Shorwell. 



A variety with double or semidouble flowers is sometimes seen in gardens, and 

 is rather ornamental. 



Root thick, fleshy, emitting several long, stout, reddish brown fibres, and when 

 cut exuding a deep safl"ion-coloured acrid and bitter juice smelling like that of pop- 

 pies or opium, and pervading the whole plant, but of a paler colour near the top of 

 the stem and in the leaves. Stems several, fiom 18 inches to 2 or 3 feet high, 

 erect, rounded or slightly angular, solid and brittle, tumid and glaucous at the 

 base and above the insertion of the irregular, spreading, mostly alternate or sub- 

 dichotomous branches, where, as well as occasionally on the internodial portion, 

 they are clothed with stiff, jointed, spreading and glaucous hairs. Leaves alternate, 

 opposite to or beneath the forks of the stein, thin, wrinkled and glabrous, gray 

 beneath, where are a few scattered hairs on the prominent reticulating veins ; 

 deeply pinnato-pinnatifid, of 3, 4 or 5 pairs (with an odd terminal one) of round- 

 ish or subovale, opposite or alternate leaflets (pinnae), which are partly distinct and 

 as it were stalked, but as often confluent by the expansion of their bases into the 

 common, winged, nearly semicylindrical and somewhat hairy petiole ; all sinuato- 

 lobate, their extremities subtritid, and often there ir, a distinct lobe at the base of 

 the pinns on its lower side : lobes cut into rounded unequal segments by nar- 

 row sinuous notches, the margins of the lobules inflexed : the radical leaves are 

 petiolate, those of the stem and branches sessile. Clusters umbellate. Vmoels 

 few- (abimt 4 — 7) flowered, terminal or opposite to the leaves, on long hairy or 

 smooth stalks of various length. Flowers on smooth or somewhat hairy pedicels 

 of very unequal length, their tumid bases half embraced by the small, glaucous, 

 sometimes rather leafy bracts, extremely fugacious. Calyx of 2 boat-shaped 

 valves of a delicate membranous texture, pale green and faintly reticulated, end- 

 ing in a subglobose point, more or less hairy. Petals 4, bright yellow, obovate or 

 subrotundate, thin and delicate, quite entire. Stamens about 20 — 25, erect; 



E 



