Oxalis.] OXALIDACE^. 103 



3 from the same scaly tuft ov knot, lax, as long as or longer than the leaves, sin- 

 gle-Howered, wavy, terete, more or less clothed v^ith fine silky hairs, especially at 

 the summit, furnished above the middle with a pair of small, appressed, purplish 

 bracts. Flowers very delicate and fugacious, nodding. Calyx hell- shaped; 

 sepals ovato-elliptical, very obtuse, nearly equal, a little fringed on their entire 

 margins, scarcely combined at base. Corolla bell-shaped ; petals very thin and 

 delicate, somewhat diaphanous, 2 or 3 times the length of the calyx, cuneato-obo- 

 vate, somewhat waved or sinuate at top, cohering together just above their short 

 abrupt claws by a gland-like projection or thickening of their substance, com- 

 monly white faintly tinged with rose-colour, elegantly streaked with purple lines, 

 and having a spot of golden-yellow below the centre of each. Stamens 10, alter- 

 nately unequal in length, their _^ /amends white, dilated and combined below into a 

 thickened glandular ring ; anthers white, innate, of 2 roundish lobes. Styles 5, 

 white, very slender, erect, straight, glabrous, a little thickened at top or subcapi- 

 tate. 



A violet-flowered variety of this species grows in many parts of the kingdom, 

 which I have never seen, nor am I aware of its occurrence in this island. 

 Gerarde speaks of a variety with red flowers. 



*2. 0. cornlculata, L. Yellow Procumbent Wood-sorrel. " Stem 

 branched, branches procumbent, pedmicles mostly 2-flowered 

 shorter than the ternate leaves, stipules united to the base of the 

 petioles."— !?>-. Fl. p. 87. E. B. t. 1726. Fl. Ban. x. t. 1753. 



On banks and waste shady cultivated places ; very rare, and certainly intro- 

 duced. Fl. May— October. 0. 



About the grounds at Steephill, Albert Hambroui/h, Esq. .'!.' A weed in the 

 garden at Alverstone mill, by Newchurch, id. .'.'.' 



The whole plant clothed with solt hairs, except the leaves, which are nearly 

 glabrous. Stems numerous, copiously branched and downy, at first somewhat 

 erect or ascending ? (Dr. Bell-Salter), but at the close of summer spreading on the 

 ground in all directions, from a few inches to a foot and upwards. Leaves various 

 in size, of 3 broad inversely heart-shaped leaflets, a little hairy at the edges and 

 principal veins only, upon rather long villous petioles, at the base of each and 

 united with it are a pair of small ciliated stipules. Hairs on the pedicels appressed, 

 those on the peduncles spreading. Flowers pedicellate, yellow, much smaller than 

 in the last, opening only in warm, dry, sunny weather, mostly in pairs, sometimes 

 3 or 4 together, on solitary, compressed, axillary and hairy peduncles that either 

 equal, exceed, or are shojter than the leafstalks. Sepals ovato-lanceolate. Cap- 

 sules prismatic, downy, with 6 prominent angles suddenly tapering at the end. 

 Seeds numerous, oval, flattened, reddish brown, with several transverse ridges, 

 invested with a white arillus that, bursting, discharges the seed elastically. 



I observed this plant springing abundantly between the pitch-stones in the 

 steep streets of Funchal in Madeira. 



O. striata, distinguished by its stouter, upright habit and absence of stipules, 

 I found growing spontaneously as a weed (though sparingly) in the garden of the 

 Rev. James Penfold of Thorley, near Yarmouth. Both this and X. corniculata 

 appear to be more truly indigenous to America than to Europe, and were probably 

 both derived to us from the western hemisphere, as the former is always thought 

 to have been. 



