244 V.U.EEIAXACEiE. [Ffdid. 



Root slender, tapering. Stem erect, fi — 12 inches high, rounded, with project- 

 ing stria, rough with minute scattered hairs, repeatedly and dichototnously 

 branched, the branches widely spreading. Leaves linear, the lowermost pair or 

 two spathulate, mostly quite entire, upper ones tapering to a bluntish point, with 

 one or more pairs of teeth at their base ; all clasping and generally slightly hairy. 

 Flowers sessile in the terminal forts of the panicle, pinkish white, very small, a 

 solitary one generally in the axils of the first and second bifurcations from the 

 summit. Capsule subglobose, gibbous in front, finely granulated, about 5-ribbed, 

 of 2 inflated empty or abortive cells before, with an evident furrow between them, 

 and one fertile cell at the back, much smaller than the others and filled with the 

 solilaiy seed. Calyx of 2 unequal lobes forming a crown to the fruit, that at the 

 back over the perfect cell much the longer and more prominent, entire or obscurely 

 tridentate, obtuse or pointed ; the lower lobe over the two front or abortive cells 

 3- or o-toothed. 



I apprehend DeCandoUe's suspicion that the present species is only a variety 

 oi F. dentata will be ultimately admitted. In this genus the capsule is naturally 

 3-celled and by abortion single-seeded ; the two empty cells are either contracted 

 to points, or inflated and turgid, in some instances merged into one by the obli- 

 teration of the septum, and by their greater or less prominence moulding the 

 exterior shape of the seed-vessel. If we only conceive the two shrunken exterior 

 cells in F. dentata to be moderately distended, we have the ampuUaceous form of 

 the capsule which distinguishes F. Auricula, between which and F. dentata I 

 cannot find a single other permanent diagnostic. I think I may almost venture 

 to predict a similar fstte to F. carinata, which, it appears to me, stands in much 

 the same rehition to F. olitoria as F. Auricula and F. dentata do to each other, a 

 less degree of turgidity in the two anterior or abortive cells sufficiently accounting 

 for the difference of configuration in its capsule and that of i^. olitoria. 



3. F. dentata, Vatl. Narrow -fruited Corn-salad. " Capsule 

 ovate flattish and 2-ribbed in front acuminate crowned with the 

 prominent oblique unequally toothed calyx. 



" a. Capsule glabrous, cup of the calyx small very oblique. Valeriana, F. B. 

 t. 1370. Valerianella Morisonii, DC. 



" /3. Capsule clothed with spreading incurved rigid hairs, cup of the calyx 

 small oblique." — 23r. J"/, p. 193. F. mixta, Vahl. Valerianella mixta, i?erto/. 

 Fl. Ital. i. p. 188. 



In cultivated fields, principally amongst corn ; very common. Fl. June — 

 August. 0. 



/3. In a cornfield, with F. Auricula, by a creek of the Medina adjoining Med- 

 ham brickfield, in great plenty, 1839. On these specimens the hairs are but 

 sparingly found, and not easily seen without a glass. 



Root annual, whitish, slender and taperiujr. Stem erect, slender, hollow, pale 

 green or purplish, rounded, but traversed by 6 thin prominent lidges, arising Irom 

 the decurrent margins of the leaves and their midrib or keel beneath ; rough and 

 scabrous, setosely hispid along the angles at its base, sometimes branching from 

 the bottom, but more usually simple for a few inches above the root, where it 

 forls into two main branches that are again lepeatedly forked or sometimes tri- 

 cbotomonsly ramified, the branches widely divaricate, lax, spreading, wiry and 

 flexuose, leafy only at the bifurcations, forming a straggling herb often of greater 

 breadth than height, which is from about a few inches to a foot usually. Leaves 

 opposite, sessile, semiamplexicaul and almost connate, pale yellowish green, mi- 

 nutely scabrous, thin and membranaceous, traversed by parallel anastomosing 

 veins that are depressed above, and by a thin, sharp, scabrous keel underneath, 

 their margins spinulose, and, as well as the keel, continued down the stem to the 

 next pair below, foiming so many sharp angles ; root- and lower stem-leaves 

 mostly entire, elongate-oblong or spathulate, very obtuse ; those at the forks of 

 the branches narrower, linear-elongate and somewhat pointed. Flowers extremely 

 minute, in small, close, 2 — 3 forked, level-topped, corymbose clusters at the sum- 



