318 CUSCUTACEiE. [Ciiscuta. 



3. C. Epithymum, L. Lesser Dodder. Vect. Maidenhair. 

 " Styles exserted, heads of many small flowers bracteated sessile, 

 corolla with a cylindrical tube longer than the campanulate calyx, 

 ' scales converging as long as the tube of the corolla fimbriated 

 and rounded, at the end approximate below with narrow acute 

 spaces.' " — Br. Fl. p. 272. E. B. t. 55. Babing. in Ann. and 

 Mag. of Nat. Hist, for July, 1845, p. 1, tab. 1, fig. 2 (dissection 

 offl.) 



On Furze, Thyme, Ling, Heath and other small mostly shrubby plants, espe- 

 cially the first oi' these species, on commons and open exposed pastures ; often 

 ahundanily. Fl. ,Iuly — October. 0. 



E. Med. — By the beach at Sandovvn. On Head Down, near Niton. On Ga- 

 lium saxatile and Erica cinerea by the roadside over Bleak Dowu to Newport. 

 The profusion with which it invests the furze on Stapler's heath, near Newport, as 

 with entangled skeins of silver thread, cannot fail to arrest the attention of the 

 most incurious. On St. George's down, G. Kirkpatrick, Esq. In Blackgang 

 chine, abundantly, — Gray, Esq., of the Brit. Museum, 1844. 



W. Med. — On Colwell heath. Plentiful and very fine on Ninn;wood common, 

 between Yarmouth and Shalfleet. Near Bouldner and on iVfottestone down, Rev. 

 James Penfold. " Matted densely upon mingled Calliina and Lichenes on Hea- 

 den hill," Rev. G. E. Smith in litt. Abundantly on Buccombe down. 



Stems filiform, inextricably entangling themselves with the plants upon which 

 they glow, of every shade of red, crimson or purple. Flowers in dense sessile 

 clusters, delicate white or rose-coloured, exquisitely diaphanous under a lens, very 

 clammy and sweet-scented, from the quantity of honey they secrete, nearly all 

 5-cleft and pentandrous in my specimens from Ningwood, with an occasional 

 4-cleft one interspersed. Throat of the corolla closed at bottom with beautiful, 

 connivent, jagged and crystalline scales, admitting between ihem the purplish 

 upper half of the styles to pass. 



13. C. Tri/oJii, Bab. Clover Dodder. " St3des exserted, heads 

 of small flowers bracteated sessile, ' tube of the corolla cylindri- 

 cal, the scales converging half as long as the tube of the corolla 

 fimbriated and rounded at the end distant below with rounded 

 spaces, calyx narrowed below as long as the tube of the corolla.' " 

 —Br. Fl. p. 272. E. B. S. t. 2898. 



In clover-fields, appearing to have been recently introduced, and as yet rare in 

 this island. Fl. July — September. 0. 



W. Med. — Abundantly in a clover-field by Thorley farm, Mr. Robert Gibbs, 

 1842 !!! Also in another field uot far farm Yarmouth mill, but on the opposite 

 side of the river, very sparingly, 1843, Mr. George Gibbs .'.'.' 



Specimens of this plant collected in a clover-field near Thorley, Sept. 1844, 

 approach more nearly to C. Epithymum than others from a neighbouring field, 

 gathered the year before, in having the calyx for the most part much shorter than 

 the tube of the corolla: but I find the relative proportion between them liable to 

 great variation, the calyx in some flowers being scarcely more than half, in others 

 almost quite, equal to the tube ; the breadth and degree of acumination in the 

 segments of the corolla differs likewise considerably : sometimes they are simply 

 acute and as broad as in C. Epithymum, at other times finely pointed and com- 

 paratively narrow. In the form of the calyx and its segments I can perceive no 

 material difference, if any, but it is white like the corolla, or at most but very 

 faintly tinged, in the clover plant. 



All the differences I have elsewhere detailed seemed to have disappeared in the 

 specimens of this year, which, excepting in having a colourless calyx, I am quite 

 unable to distinguish from the ordinary C. Epithymum. 



The Clover Dodder, if a distinct species from C. Epithymum, is of no such 



