Antirrhinum.] scrophulariace^. 345 



spiked, segments of the calyx ovate obtuse much shorter than 

 the corolla, upper lip of corolla bifid."— Br. Fl. p. 299. E. B. t. 

 129. 



Naturalized on walls and old buildings ; escaped from adjacent gardens ; not 

 unfrequent. Fl. June— August. If. 



E. Med. — Ou the garden-wall of Morton house, by Brading. Abundantly on 

 old walls at E. Cowes. 



W. Med. — On several garden-walls at Newport, Yarmouth, &c. Yarmouth 

 castle and many other buildings in various parts of the island, Mr. W. D. 

 Snooke !!! 



Root of several long, stout, branched fibres, very hard, stiff and woody. Stems 

 numerous, slightly ascending at base, afterwards erect, from I to 2 feet or more 

 in height, round, leafy, glabrous below, hairy above with brownish gland-tipped 

 pubescence, emitting short barren shoots from the axils of the leaves, otherwise 

 mostly simple. Leaves numerous, scattered, alternate, opposite or partly whorled, 

 dull green, more or less deflexed and recurved, somewhat fleshy, obscurely veined, 

 narrow-lanceolate, the larger and lower about 2 or 3 inches long and Jrd to ^ an 

 inch wide, attenuated below or subpetiolate, acute, with a short somewhat sudden 

 or abrupt point. Flowers subimbricated, close, in a terminal, spike-like, con- 

 stantly elongating raceme, on short, thick, erect, glandnlosely fWose peduncles. 

 Bract solitary, boat-shaped, acute and incurved, about as long as the flower-stalks 

 they subtend, very bairy. Calyx 5 or 6 times shorter than the corolla, oblique ; 

 sepals broadly ovate, obtuse, concave, bluntly keeled, scarcely nerved, hairy exter- 

 nally. Corolla 1^ inch long, in the truly wild state of a pale purple or flesh-red 

 or even white, but in the naturalized condition now described partaking in some 

 measure of the rich and varied hues of the cultivated plant from which they ori- 

 ginated. Stamens Inserted at the very base of the corolla, their_/J/amerets nearly 

 glabrous, geniculate at bottom, and villose at the flexure with pellucid stalked 

 glands ; anthers bright yellow, of 2 oblong, separate, diverging lobes. Ovary 

 hairy, greenish, glabrous and tumid at base, but not seated ou an annular gland. 

 Style terete, pubescent, rather exceeding the shorter and posterior stamens, which 

 embrace the ovary by their geniculate lower ends, a little thickened upwards to its 

 obliquely truncate, yellowish and glandulose summit (stigma), which curves a 

 little forward. Capsitfes pale brown, hard and stifl', ovato-conical, obtuse and a 

 little curved at the apex, very gibbous at the base, glanduloso-pubescent, with a 

 deep furrow on each side like the Italic long/, opening by 3 valvate terminal 

 splits or pores surrounding the persistent base of the style, the anterior cell dehis- 

 cing by 2 openings, the posterior by a single one. Seeds numerous, sooty black, 

 very irregular in size and shape, truncate and angular like grains of coarse gun- 

 powder, and sculptured all over with a rough prominent reticulation, forming 

 angular cells. 



Few plants present a more notable example of the triumph of Art over Nature 

 in the production of varied and vivid colouring than this. In its truly wild state, 

 as I have seen it on the stony hills near Montpellier and in the limestone quarries 

 of Devonshire,* where it is scarcely less at home, its colours, as before remarked, 

 are by no means striking or brilliant ; whilst in cultivation it is one of the most 

 stately and gorgeous flowers of the parterre, outvieingthe richest velvets in the soft- 

 ness and intensity of its crimson pile, relieved by the most glowing shades of orange 

 and gold, at other times sporting in an endless combination of gaudy colours, — 

 red, white, yellow and purple, — and striped, chequered, blotched or veined in as 

 infinite diversity of patterns. Of the easiest culture, it graces alike the garden of 

 the peasant and the peer, and, finding in this part of Europe a congenial climate, 

 quickly establishes itself upon any wall or old building adjacent to itsplace of growth, 



* At Catdown quarries, near Plymouth, it has perfectly established itself on 

 the rock, and has there assumed the unostentatious tint of the primitive type, a 

 pale flesh-red or almost white. 



2 Y 



