356 scROPHULARiACEa;. [Melampyrum. 



depressed glands, calyx with very long setaceous points, corolla 

 rather longer than the calyx, the lips closed. Br. Fl. p. 39R. 

 E. B. t. 53. Curt. Br. Entom. vi. t. 273. 



In cornfields and on dry banks adjacent to tljem on the chalk at the back of the 

 island; most abundantly. Fl. 3uwe — August. ©. 



E. Med. — A splendid but pernicious plant, originally, there is no doubt, intro- 

 duced with seed-wheat; now but too common in some parts of the S. of the 

 island, where it proves a grievous nuisance, and apparently becon)ingniore widely 

 dispersed every year. First noticed on the Deane and Ash farms, near St. Law- 

 rence, where the wheat an.d barley are completely overrun by it, and the crops 

 greatly deteriorated thereby. Common about Whitwell. Cornfields at the W. 

 end of Ventnor, plentifully in 1838. Tn fields, upon banks and bushy slopes above 

 Lord Yarborough's murine villa at St. Lawrence, and I have traced it as far as 

 Bonchurch, but where it occurs more sparingly as yet. It behoves the farmers of 

 W. Medina to he on their guard against its introduction into their chalky soils. 

 A specimen with white flowers was found by Miss Hadfield near Ventnor ! 



A bushy herb, conspicuous from the rich purple-coloured bracts of its flower- 

 spikes. Root annual, whitish, tapering, flexuose, branched and rigid, said to be 

 parasitic. Stem erect, from 10 — 18 inches high, rather obtusely quadrangular 

 above, nearly round just above the root, its ceuiral cavity filled with loose cellular 

 tissue; much branched, sometimes from the very base, the branches opposite or 

 subalternate, erect or spreading, often like the stem partly purplish and rough 

 with copious short, curved, deflexed pubescence. Leaves pale dull green, subses- 

 sile, mos'ly opposite, a few here and there somewhat alternate, linear-lanceolate, 

 their edges slightly deflexed, a little obtuse at the apex, obscurely veined above, 

 reticulated beneath, the midrib often purplish ; harsh with short, scattered, bristly 

 hairs, the lower leaves mostly quite entire, those at or near the bottom of the 

 flower-spikes with one or more basal pair of linear-lanceolate or subulate entire 

 teeth, mostly pointing forwards, incurved and very acute. Flowers sessile, in 

 ovate or oblong, 4-sided, obtuse, lax .spikes, terminating the stem and branches, 

 and lengtheninij out to 4 or 5 inches as the summer advances, each flower sub- 

 tended by an erect ovate hract, which is at first of a fine purple rose-colour, after- 

 wards as the seed forms changing to green like the leaves, pectinato-pinnatifid, 

 with long, subulate, spreading, acute leeth; 5-nerved and tapering at the base, 

 the lower bracts wiih longer points, their margins and those of the teeth finely 

 spinuloso-ciliate ; sprinkled at the back with several round, depressed, dark brown 

 and shining dots or glands, that are placed irregularly or as it were by chance, 

 and imbedded in the substance of the bract ; the use of these glands is unknown, 

 though they are always present. Calyx tubuloso- campanulate, very loosely 

 investing the corolla, angular and downy, greenish or purplish, about fths or frds 

 the length of the corolla, its segments triangular, the two lower ones smallest, all 

 with very long, waved, setaceous, spinuloso-ciliated points, into which are conti- 

 nued the 4 .stout hairy calyx-ribs. Corolla exceeding the calyx in lenijth, finely 

 downy, the tefie long, slender, rose-coloured, bent nearly in the middle; throat 

 bright yellow verging on orange, hairy within ; lips closed, dark rose-red, thickly 

 sprinkled with pellucid very minute globules; the upper lip bordered with a pur- 

 ple beard, and shaggy inside with long white hairs ; lou-er lip beardless, trifid at 

 the apex, the edges much incurved, with a stout blunt keel on its concave under 

 side. Stamens cohering ; filaments yellow, with a few glandular points, the lower 

 pair enlarged in the middle; anthers liuear- oblong, purplish, with greenbacks, 

 bearded at the base and apex, coadnate by their ilai anterior faces; pollen of 

 roundish, white, pellucid, angular grains. Style white, very long and filifurm, 

 slightly hairy in its upper half, the summit deflexed, slightly thickened at its apex 

 into a simple glandular stigma; germen obliquely conical, glabrous, with a large, 

 green, tumid and slightly lobed gland in front at its base. Capsule greenish, 

 membranous, obovato-rotundate, compressed, with a minute, oblique, recurved 

 point, strongly reticulated, glabrous, and sprinkled with a few warty protube- 

 rances. Seeds much like grains of wheat in size and colour, always partly abor- 



