Jasione.] campanulace;e. 295 



IV. Jasione, Linn. Sheep's-bit. 



" Corolla rotate, in 5 deep narrow segments. Anthers united 

 at their base. Stigma club-shaped. Capsule 2-celled, opening at 

 the top by minute teeth. (Flowers collected into a head, within a 

 many -leaved involucre)." — Br. Fl. 



1. J. montana, L. Common Sheep's - scabious. Sheep's-bit. 

 " Leaves linear waved hispid, peduncles solitary elongated, root 

 annual or biennial." — Br. Fl. p. 250. E. B. t. 882. 



In sandy or gravelly fields and pastures, on dry banks and healhy hilly places ; 

 not un frequent. i^Z. June — September. Q {o^ ^ , Hoolc.) 



E. Med. — Common in and about Shanklin chine, and on the banks of slipped 

 land beneath the clitT immediately to the northward of it. Common on Royal 

 heath and along the road from Newport to Niton, about Bleak down, &c. On 

 Lake and Blackpau commons. Apse healh, and under the cliff at Shanklin, Mr. 

 Snooke .'.'/ 



W. Med. — Frequent in and about Blackgang chine. 



Plant about a foot high, often much less, sometimes more, acrid and milky. 

 Ront long, white and tapering, simple or a little branched, tough and woody in 

 the middle, emitting a central, erect, often much-branched stem, and several 

 ascending or reclining and spreading lateral ones, which are angular, very leafy, 

 and mostly hispid with long, stiff, white hairs or bristles, in some varieties smooth. 

 Leaves numerous, grayish green, sessile, linear-oblong, blunt, the lowermost about 

 an inch in length, entire but twisted and undulated, their margins mostly deflexed, 

 usually very rough like the stem with bristly hairs, single-ribbed and somewhat 

 fleshy. Flowers light blue, pedicellate, in dense hemispherical heads, on very 

 long, terminal, smooth and furrowed peduncles, strikingly like those of the N. 

 American Gilia capitata, so common in gardens, both in form and colour, though 

 very different in their more intimate structure. Pedicels smooth, inserted on a gla- 

 brou", flattish, lactescent receptacle or torus, which is surrounded by a plane invo- 

 lucre of 5 exterior and about as many interior ovate, entire or toothed bracts. 

 Calyx subcampanulate, persistent, its lower tubular portion 5-ribbed and 5-angled, 

 adnate with the ovary, the summit in as many erect, awl-shaped, distant, very 

 acute segments. Corolla inserted on the top of the calyx-tube, deciduous, finally 

 cleft to the very base inlo 5 linear orligulate, equal, nearly erect segments, which 

 are much longer than the calyx, but are often previously partially combined below 

 into a tube. Stamens inserted into the tube of the calyx opposite the segments ; 

 filaments erect ; anthers oblong, 2-celled, bursting before the expansion of the 

 flower along their inner face, combined at their bases but not forming a tube ; 

 pollen globular, purplish. Style roundish, blue, at first included, its club-shaped 

 extremity at that time beset with stiff spreading hairs for arresting the pollen 

 which copiously covers and almost conceals it; afterwards the style elongates and 

 becomes much exserted, and its extremity glabrous and slightly cloven. Seeds 

 numerous, very small, brown, elliptical-oblong, compressed, beautifully smooth, 

 appearing finely and longitudinally wrinkled under a very high power of the 

 microscope, polished and pellucid. 



The plant has a hot acrid taste and scent. 



Dr. Macreight, in his ' Manual of British Botany,' p. 146, mentions a variety 

 of this plant (the /3. maritima of DC.) as growing on the shore near Portsmouth, 

 which is very hairy, with prostrate stems, short cauline leaves, hirsute calyx, and 

 obtuse outer leaves of the involucre. 



