338 SCROPHULARIACE^. [Veronica. 



In damp shady groves, woods, copses, and on moist liedgebanks, in many parts 

 of the island, but especially of East Medina; abundantly. Fl. April — July. !(.. 



E. Med. — Abundant about Ryde, as in Quair copse, and on tlie hedgebank of 

 the garden at Binstead. Plentiful in the wooded ground between Qiiarr abbey and 

 Ninham farm. Marina wood, by Apley. Woods about the Priorv. New copse, 

 near Wootton bridge. Woods about Shanklin. Tn Great Wood, Hungerberry 

 and other copses, ocuasioually. Woods at Appuldurcombe. Wood between New- 

 port and Ryde, and at Shanklin, D. Turner, Esq., Fl. Vect. 



W. Med. — Frequent in woods at W. Cowes, as in that by IMrs. Goodwin's 

 house, and about the new church in her grounds. Swaiuston. Common in New 

 Barn Hummet, Calbourne. Lorden copse. 



Root very small, slender, emitting one or more trailing or procumbent stems a 

 foot or two in length, which again take root at intervals, with bundles of slender, 

 brownish, branched fibres, and send up erect or ascending flowering branches, which 

 like itself are round, solid, copiously clothed all over with soft, white,spreading, 

 gland-tipped and jointed hairs, the flowering extremities upright. Leaves oppo- 

 site, stalked, bright pale green, broadly ovate, not cordate at the base, distantly 

 and sharply inciso-serrate, the terminal serrature very large, roundish or pointed ; 

 strongly but not rugosely veined, clothed on both sides with acute (not glandular), 

 jointed, erect pubescence, shorter and less copious than in V. OhamEedrys. Pe- 

 tioles semiterete, about half the length of the leaves or rather more, very hairy, 

 without stipules. Racemes axillary, alternate or occasionally opposite, erect, 

 much longer than the leaves, few- (about 4 — 7) flowered. Flowers smaller than 

 in V. Chamsedrys, but not less elegant, pale purple or lilac, beautifully pencilled 

 with darker lines. Pedicels hairy, erect, much longer than the narrow linear-lan- 

 ceolate bract at their base. Calyx hairy, segments ovate, acute, 3-nerved, fringed 

 with gland-tipped hairs. Corolla exceeding the calyx, but proportionably much 

 shorter than in V. Chamaedrj's, scarcely at all hairy, as in that, about the mouth of 

 the very short tube. Stamens and style as in V. ChaniEedrys, but faintly tinged 

 with purple. Capsules much larger than the calyx, veined, pale whitish brown, 

 orbicular, disciform, 2-lobed, emarginate at the summit and tipped with the long 

 slender style, appearing denticulated from the glandular bases of the jointed hairs 

 that fringe the margin of each valve, every hair being also lipped with a minute 

 gland. Seeds about 3 or 4 in each cell, pale yellow, nearly orbicular, flat, smooth 

 and shining, marked on one side near the centre with a brown spot surrounded by 

 a tawny areola and another dark spot at the base. 



Very nearly allied to the last, hut essentially distinguished by its pale green, 

 sharply serrated, much longer stalked leaves ; by its stem, which is hairy all 

 round ; by the fewer, smaller, and very difierenlly coloured flowers, and the singu- 

 larly rounded capsule. 



This species, from the notice taken in 'English Botany' of its discovery by 

 Sherard in Charlton wood, seems to have been constantly confounded with V. 

 Chamcedrys, and therefore esteemed rare. It is now ascertained to be by no 

 means uncommon, though perhaps local. Yet it appears strange that a species 

 so widely distributed over Britain as the present should have been so little known 

 as to render its discovery by Sherard a matter worthy of record, and still stranger, 

 as Sir W. Hooker remarks, that it should have been confounded with the more 

 common V. Chamcedrys, from which its long trailing stems, hairy all round, 

 stalked leaves, singularly compressed capsule, and its much smaller and paler 

 flowers, afford ample means of discrimination. That the talented and scrutinizing 

 Scopoli did not seize the essential characters of our V. montana we have his own 

 evidence to prove (Fl. Carn. i. p. 14). Coiurna's figure, so much praised by Sir 

 J. Smith, correctly depicts the stem, leaves and general habit, but represents the 

 flowers with 4 stamens, and in other respects greatly unlike the original. The 

 trivial name montana is not so applicable to this as to many species of the genus, 

 the plant affecting low as well as elevated situations in Britain and on the Conti- 

 nent. The singular resemblance of the orbicular compressed capsule to the pod 

 of Biscutella might have suggested the name of that genus as a more appropri- 

 ate specitic name for this species of Veronica. The whole herb, in common with 

 a few of its allies, turns black in drying or shortly afterwards. 



