Linaria.] sceophulariace.t.. 353 



wards droops at the summit, and finally becomes prostrate like the lateral ones, 

 which spread in all directions, and together with the main stem elongate as the 

 autumn advances often to 2 or 3 feet. Leaves numdVous, on short hairy stalks, 

 the earliest and lowermost pair or two mostly opposite, roundish ovate, angulato- 

 dentate or repando-dentate, those above them broadly hastate or ovato-bastate, 

 acute, with horizontally diverging acute auricles ; gradually becoming smaller 

 and mostly narrower, the extreme leaves and those on the lateral branches very 

 small, and either similar in shape to the rest or ovate and rounded at the base ; 

 all hairy like the stem, of a grayer or more glaucous green, and somewhat less 

 flexible than in the next species, with a far less soft and less copious pubescence, 

 their veins few, distant and prominent beneath. Pedicels solitary, axillary, sin- 

 gle-flowered, very slender, scarcely thicker than a thread, perfectly glabrous except 

 near both extremities, which are slightly hairy ; patent, and when in fruit diverg- 

 ing nearly at right angles from the stem, or even partly deflexed, in which they 

 differ materially from the following species, the pedicels in which are seldom more 

 than simply divaricate. Flowers smaller, paler and less conspicuous than in the 

 next species, otherwise very similar. Sepals scarcely if at all enlarged after 

 flowering, ovato-lanceolate, very acute, hairy on the sharp prominent keel and 

 edges, which last are expanded at the base into membranous, reflexed, pellucid 

 margins, which are wa;itiug in L. spuria. Corolla hairy, a little longer than the 

 calyx, the middle segment of the lower lip rather longer than the 2 lateral (in L. 

 spuria the 3 segments are of equal length or nearly so, and the palate less promi- 

 nent) ; the colour of the lower lip is more of an uniform yellow than in L. spuria, 

 with a dash only of violet at its exterior basal edges; upper lip plane, less deeply 

 bifid with broader segments than in L. spuria, deep violet, not purplish brown as 

 in that ; spur very slender, straight or scarcely at all incurved, nearly glabrous. 

 Stamens fringed near the base with a few coarse hairs ; a fifth abortive one on the 

 centre of the upper lip behind the others; anthers cohering, dark purple, bluntly 

 cordate, granulated, their lobes bearded with a tuft of stiff hairs. Sti/le glanda- 

 loso-pilose in its lower half, glabrous and enlarged upwards ; stigma oblique, on 

 the enlarged summit of the style, ending in a flat pointed lobe ; germen globose, 

 covered with gland-tipped hairs and sealed on a tumid base. Ca/)Wes small, whitish 

 and pubescent, mostly a little shorter than the scarcely enlarged calyx, subglobose, 

 slightly compressed laterally and flattened at the summit, rather faintly 2-lobed, 

 opening by 2 oblique circular valves that nearly meet at its apex. Seeds about 

 12 — 20, dull brown, subrotundo-ovate, without a border, deeply sinuato-rugose or 

 cellular. 



This and the following plant, like our periwinkles, afford a beautiful example of 

 two closely allied yet unquestionably distinct species. Nearly as they approach 

 in character, and often as they are found growing intermixed, I have never 

 observed any disposition to hybridize. Their geographical distribution is also 

 very different: L. spuria is the more southern plant, neitlier ranging to Ireland in 

 the West nor to Sweden in the North, in both which countries L. Elatine is found, 

 though rarely. Neither of them has yet occurred in Scotland, and beyond the 

 midland counties of England L. spuria is already scarce. The flowers of both are 

 occasionally regular or peloriated {see L vulgaris), in which condition I have 

 found them in chalky fields at Twyford, near Winchester. The fifth additional 

 or abortive stamen \staininodium), analogous to the scale in Scrophularia, Slc, 

 exists in both these species (and in L. Cymhalaria P) as a minute skinny appen- 

 dage in a fold at the base of the upper lip, above and behind the four perfect 

 stamens. 



I find L. Elatine repeatedly in situations very remote from cultivation, in wet, 

 spongy and boggy places on heaths, and on moist or dry ditchbanks, as also in 

 woods, where X. spuria never occurs, that being to all appearance exclusively a 

 plant of tillage-land, or at most of waste ground in the vicinity of the former. 



6. L. spuria, Mill. Round - leaved Fluellen or Toadflax. 

 Leaves ovate downy mostly alternate and entire, stem prostrate 



2 z 



