58 FRANKENiACE«. [Frankeuia. 



ramified * and confluent towards the margin, anastomosing with the central nerve 

 by an oblique branch or two of the latter, generall}' towards the apex. 



This plant accords pretty exactly with the description given by Koch and others 

 of P. depressa, and from its peculiarity of habit challenges attention as a well- 

 marked form of the common iVIilkwort. 



I am almost persuaded that P. amara, P. comosa, P. major, P. calcarea, and P. 

 depressa are so many states of one protean species, viz., P. vulgaris, the varieties 

 of which, even within the limit allowed to deviations from the normal type, are 

 sufficiently numerous to induce a belief that the above so-called species are but 

 further developments of similar changes in the common European plant ; in proof 

 of which may be adduced the great discrepancy in the characters assigned to and 

 the accounts given of these assumed species by the authors treating of them. 



Order XII. FEANKENIACE^, St. Hil. 



" Sepals 4 — 5, combined into a furrowed persistent tube. 

 Petals 4 — 5, clawed, crowned at the mouth. Stamens as many as 

 the petals and alternating with them, with usually 1 — 2 accessory 

 ones opposite to the petals. Ovary 1. Style filiform, 2 — 3 cleft. 

 Capsule 2 — 4 valved, 1-celled. Seeds minute, attached to the 

 margins of the valves. Embryo straight in the albumen. — Herba- 

 ceous or suffruticose, mxich branched. Leaves opposite, ivithout 

 stipules, but with a membranous sheathing base." — Br. Fl. 



I. Feankenia, Linn. Sea Heath. 

 " Stigmas S."—Br. Fl. 



1. F. Icevis, L. Smooth Sea Heath. " Leaves linear revolute 

 at the margin glabrous ciliated at the base." — Br. Fl. p. 52. 

 E. B. t. 205. 



On muddy salt-marsh flats, also on cliffs and banks by the sea ; but rarely. 

 Fl. July — September. If. 



ja. Med. — On a turf fence at the extremity of St. Helen's spit near the ferry, 

 sparingly, and on the ground adjacent; more plentiful on the flat sandy shore at 

 the upper end of the spit, a short distance from the causeway to the mill, and 

 covering a considerable space. 



W. Med. — Edges of the brine-pans of Newtown Saltern. In considerable 

 abundance in 1837 at the base of the stupendous chalk-clifFs in Scratchell's bay, 

 towards its eastern or Sun-Comer end, as indicated to me by the Rev. G. E. Smith, 

 from whom I had the first notice of this species as indigenous to the island. It 

 is now extinct in this locality, unless, as is probable, it grows on the higher and 

 inaccessible ledges of the cliff, the station at the foot being since overwhelmed by 

 the falling of the chalk from above !!! 



A much-branched, procumbent, and almost shrubby plant, with heath-like foli- 

 age, but from its prostrate habit liable to be passed by, even when in flower, for 

 some Arenaria, or other fleshy-leaved maritime species, of more common occur- 

 rence. 



* I am disposed to lay but little stress on the neuration of the wings or 

 enlarged lateral sepals, finding this character liable to considerable irregularity on 

 the same specimen. 



