Convolvulus.] CONVOLVULACEiE. 315 



gardens and shrubberies, where its presence is usually regarded as less ornamen- 

 tal than obtrusive. 



Of the var. p. the flowers are in this island rarely more than suflFused with a 

 faint blush of red, but in some parts of England they are found deep rose-coloured, 

 and T have myself gathered thera so in Guernsey. A similar variety appears to 

 be the commoner American form of this widely diffused species, which under the 

 foregoing or following states is indigenous over a great part of both hemispheres. 

 In America the lobes of the leaves are often rounded or angular, but not decidedly 

 truncate ; the leaves, petioles and stems either wholly or partially hairy, and the 

 bracts, I think, rather shorter in proportion to the tube of the corolla than in the 

 Europeau plant. In this slate it is the C. repens of Linnaeus, Ike, and which I 

 have giithered abundantly on the banks of the Savannah river, a little below the 

 city, with both white and blush-coloured flowers, but excepting in the above par- 

 ticulars I lind nothing to distinguish it from the ordinary European form of C. 

 sepiurn . 



3. C. Soldanella, L. Sea-side Bindweed. Scottish Scurvy- 

 grass. Sea Coleivort. Vect. Scurvy - grass. Leaves kidney- 

 shaped somewhat angular fleshy, peduncles single-flowered square 

 slightly winged at the corners and thickening upwards, bracts 

 close beneath the flower large ovate, seeds glabrous. E. B. t. 

 314. Calystegia, Br. : Br. Fl. p. 271. 



On the sandy or shingly sea-beach, but not commonly. Fl. July, August. 

 Fr. September. If.. 



E. Med. — Spit at St. Helens, in some abundance. Lower end of Sundown 

 bay, towards Shanklin, sparingly. On the Dover spit at Bembriilge the plant has 

 more of the trailing habit of C. arvensis, the stems being sometimes above 2 feet 

 in length, but the flowers are produced more sparingly. 



W. Med. — Plentifully in the loose sand on Norton spit. 



Root (or rather rhizoma) white, fleshy, slender, cylindvioal, scarcely branched, 

 running pretty far into the loose sand or shingle. Stem one or two, simple or a 

 little branched, seldom above a span long, often only 2 or 3 inches, quite prostrate 

 or trailing, leafy, purplish, with several slightly winged angles and full of a milky 

 juice. Leaves aliernale, yellowish green, strongly veined, very smooth and shin- 

 ing, fleshy, sprinkled on both sides with depressed dots, on round channelled foot- 

 stalks twice or thrice their own length, cordato-reniform or orbicular-reniform, 

 very obtuse, with a minute point, more or less bluntly angular, and very like the 

 leaves of the common Scurvy-grass {Cochlearia officinalis), for a species of which 

 it is taken by the ignorant here and in other parts of the country. Flowers soli- 

 tary, on square axillary peduncles that are longer than the leaves and with their 

 angles slightly wiuged, the size of those of C. sepium, pale purplish rose-colour 

 with 5 yellowish plaits, very handsome but fragile, and quickly fading when 

 gathered. Bracts 2, closely embracing the calyx, broadly ovate, keeled, edged 

 with a narrow scarious border, very obtuse, emarginate, the inner one as long as 

 the calyx, the outer a little shorter and auricled at the base. Sepals very unequal 

 in breadth, ovato-elliptical, apiculate, very blunt, the 2 outer much larger and 

 roundish. Stainens whitish, ^ii&.x filavnents much dilated and glanduloso-pilose in 

 their lower part ; anthers pale, erect. Style rather longer than the stamens, 

 cylindrical, enlarged beneath into the conical 2- or 4-lobed germen, which is 

 seated on and partly enclosed in a yellow lobed and fleshy gland ; stigmas 

 2 oblong, very rough, nearly erect lobes. Capsule enclosed in the calyx and bracts, 

 large, brownish, subglobose, splitting very irregularly, obtusely 3- or 4-lobed and 

 angled, mucronate, 2-, 3-, or 4-seeded. Seeds large, bluntly triquetrous, smooth 

 and black, one or two often abortive. Sometimes tbe capsule is monospermous. 



The long, creeping and tenacious roots assist, with other plants of more homely 

 aspect but greater efiiciency, in binding the loose and drifting sand, the barren 

 monotony of whose level surface is softened, if not concealed, by the abundance 

 and delicate colouring of its reclining bells. 



