Melampyrum.] scrophulariace^. 355 



the calyx closed, the lower lip straight." — Br. Fl. p. 296. E. B. 

 t. 113. 



/3. Leaves ovate or ovato-lanceolate. 



In dry woods and thickets ; very common. Fl. May — July? ©. 



In St. John's wood, Quarr copse, and other places ahout Kyde, &c. 



^. Plentifully in New copse, near Wootton bridge. A specimen found at Apse 

 castle, 184.3. Mr. Borrer finds it on the Wye with very broad ovate and cordate 

 leaves, and I gathered it plentifully with leaves nearly as broad in Ross Island, 

 Killarney, in 1842. 



Root of several rigid, whitish, branched fibres. Stem erect, from about 8 — 12 

 inches high, obtusely quadrangular, alternately furrowed on the two opposite sides, 

 greenish or purplish, often marked with dark spots or blotches, glabrous or 

 slightly puhescent with short rigid hairs, copiously and for the most part brachi- 

 ately branched from the bottom, the branches axillary, long, lax, spreading or 

 ascending, readily broken off at their swollen junction with the stem, mostly oppo- 

 site, here and there alternate, or sometimes two together one below the other, 

 waved or flexuose. Leaves opposite, entire, distant, very shortly stalked or sub- 

 sessile, dark green, somewhat firm and leathery, roughish above and minutely sca- 

 brous on their somewhat inflexed margins, finely reticulated and paler beneath, 

 very variable in breadth, from linear-lanceolate to ovato-lanceolate or even ovate, 

 subcordate at the base, acuminate, the apex somewhat obtuse, mostly recurved. 

 Floral bracts similar in form and colour to the leaves, but smaller and more acute, 

 with from ahout 1 — 3 basal pairs of long, straight or incurved teeth ; the lower- 

 most pair of bracts usually entire or nearly so ; all furnished with a few depressed- 

 glands, which, as in the next species, are found but very sparingly sprinkled over 

 the surface, chiefly at their lower extremities. Flowers solitary aud axillary, 

 second and approximating in pairs, forming a short leafy spike or raceme termi- 

 nating the stem and branches, on extremely short thick peduncles, patent or 

 ascending. Calyx tubuloso-campanulate, a little compressed, tinged with purple, 

 its segments nearly equal, ascending, lanceolato-acuminate, ciliato-scabrous, the 

 upper pair decussate, with a rounded sinus between them, the lower curved 

 upwards, the sinus between them more acute. Corolla 6 or 8 lines in length, or 

 above thrice that of the calyx, straight, the tube extremely short, greenish, the 

 throat usually pale yellow or ochraceous, often nearly white, minutely downy, lips 

 yellow verging upon orange, at other limes rose-coloured, closed or nearly so, the 

 upper one greenish at the sides, its short, turned-up, purplish border emarginate ; 

 shaggy inside, the beard whitish ; lower lip equal in length to the upper (in all my 

 specimens now before me the upper lip is by no means the protruding pne, as 

 stated by Mr. Babington) or slightly exceeding the latter, purplish, the apex of 

 its inflexed margin minutely 3-cleft, downy but not bearded within; the palate 

 yellow, vaulted and traversed by a deep furrow, and hence 2-lobed, with a pur- 

 plish spot at the posterior part of each lobe, of a curved figure. Antliers cohering 

 in one mass by their anterior faces, bearded with wLite hairs at their lower end. 

 Germen small, ovate, much flattened, obliquely pointed, with a tumid, finely 

 punctate, striated gland in front, which is produced anteriorly into a short olituse 

 process, of a cylindrical shape, that is sometimes erected, at other times doubled 

 down upon the basal lobe ; style included, deciduous, white, nearly glabrous, 

 incurved and gradually dilated below its subcapitate glauduloso- pilose apex. 

 Capsules pale green, nearly J an inch in length, ovoid, much compressed and sob- 

 acuminate, a little oblique at the base and very acute apex, at length blackish and 

 rugosely reticulated. Seeds 2 — 4, wax- or horn-coloured, ovate or elliptical- 

 oblong, truncate at the end and attached to the white spongy caruncle. 



t ? 3. M. arvense, li. Purple Cow-wheat. Vect. Poverty-weed. 

 Leaves linear-lanceolate, the uppermost toothed at the base, 

 spikes oblong lax 4-sided, bracts ovato-lanceolate pectinato-pin- 

 natifid with awl- shaped segments dotted at the back with a few 



