176 HALORAGACE^. [CalUtriche . 



face of the water, of several remote, leafless, 4- (or even 6-, Gaudin) flowered 

 whorls round a bluntly quadrangular common stalk or axis. Male (barren) fiowers 

 sessile, occupyinff the 2, 3, or 4 superior whorls, conspicuous before expansion by 

 their bright red colour, each subtended by 3 entire, roundish, concave bracts, of 

 which that in the centre is by far the largest ; calyx half-inferior, in 4 erect, une- 

 qiial, roundish or oblong, green segments. Petals 4, alternate with the calyx-seg- 

 ments and several times longer, quickly falling, roundish, deeply hollowed or con- 

 cave, each during asstivalion enclosing 2 of the anthers, and forming together a 

 cubic form, bright purplish red, with pale scariose edges. Stamens 8, the length 

 of the petals, inserted around the 4 rudiments of germens ; anthers large, oblong- 

 quadrangular, greenish yellow. Fertile {female) flowers in about as many whorls 

 as the barren, and beneath the latter. Carpets brownish gray, subglobose, obtusely 

 quadrangular, with 4 deep furrows, the intermediate faces rounded, forming as 

 many lobes. 



2. M. alterniflorum, DC. Alternate-flowered Water Milfoil. 

 Leaves whorled mostly in threes sometimes opposite pectinato- 

 pinnate, segments capillary distant mostly alternate. Br. Fl. p. 

 139. M. spic. 0., Sm. Engl. iv. p. 143. E. B. Suppl. t. 2854. 

 Van Hall. Fl. Belg. Sept. i. p. 856. No. 1068a. Banning. Fl. 

 Monast. p. 291. No. 1146. Petiv. Engl. Herb. t. vi. fig. 6. 



/3. Leaves with linear segments ; bracts under the sterile flowers linear-lan- 

 ceolate, quite entire. An. Moris, iii. 622, sect. 15, t. 4, fig. 7, in Sm. Engl. Fl. 

 iv. p. 143, cit. ? et Raii, Syn. ed. 3tia, cura Dillen. p. 151. 



In similar places and sometimes mixed with the last, and about equally if not 

 more common than that. Fl. May — July. If.. 



E. Med. — In vast abundance in some of the ditches on Sandown Level, where, 

 as between the fort and the Brading road, it often fills them entirely. Also in 

 ditches on the western skirts of Lake and Blackpan (?) commons, in plenty. In 

 Lashmere pond, at the foot of Bleak Down. 



W. Med. — Along with Typha angustifolia in a pool between Great Thorness 

 and Elmswoith farms. In two small elevated pools amongst the fields about half 

 a mile E.S.E. of Rowledge, nearly in the angle formed by Buccombe and Galle- 

 berry Downs, in great plenty. 



Herb floating or creeping on the wet mud about the margins of pools and 

 ditches, much more slender than the last and of a brighter green. Root as in 

 that a bundle of long, filiform, whitish, nearly simple fibres. Stems several, 

 chordiform, jointed, striated, hollow, with several radiating septa and a central 

 medullary core, oppositely and alternately branched. Leaves bright green, mostly 

 whorled, ternate or quaternate, a few occasionally opposite (in this island usually 

 in threes), their segments far finer, fewer and more distant than in M. spicatum, 

 alternate rather than opposite in their arrangement, soon fading and collapsing 

 from their greater tenuity, the lower ones decaying and falling away, leaving that 

 part of the stem bare as in M. spicatum. Spikes terminal, very small, reclining 

 on the surface of the water, their tips at first drooping, afterwards erecl. 



III. Calliteiche, Linn. Water Starwort. 



" Monojcious. [Barren flowers : — Perianth single, of 2 leaves 

 (they are, rather, 2 bracteas) or none. Anther of 1 cell. Fertile 

 flowers: — Qermen 4-lobed ; lobes laterally compressed, indeliis- 

 cent with four 1-seeded cells." — Br. Fl. 



1. C. verna, L. Common or Vernal Water Starivort. " Fruit 

 nearly sessile, lobes parallel in pairs bluntly keeled on the back, 

 styles constantly erect, bracts falcate." — Bab. Man. p. 118. E. 

 B. t. 722. Br. Fl. p. 370. 



