Euphrasia.] schophulariace^. 361 



lip vaulted or helmet-shaped, compressed, downy chiefly along the back, faintly 

 ribbed, its anterior margin in 2 short, bluish, lobe-like appendages rounded in 

 front ; lower lip 3 -lobed, about as long as the upper, the lobes nearly equal, round- 

 ish, the 2 lateral lobes waved, entire, vertical and parallel to each other, the mid- 

 dle lobe folded. Stamens short, included ; filaments broad, membranous, twisted 

 below, yellowish and glabrous ; anthers 2-celled, densely bearded along the sutures 

 with white hairs. Nectary a small, green, fleshy, incurved scale or gland at the 

 base of the anterior acute margin of the ovalo-rotundate germen, obtuse and deci- 

 duous. Style long, filiform, a little hairy, incurved, deep violet just beneath the 

 thick, greenish, capitate stigma. Capsule enclosed in the much longer and now 

 husky, brownish, inflated and conspicuously ribbed calyx, almost exactly orbicu- 

 lar, nearly plane, strongly veined, mucronate with the persistent base of the style, 

 quite glabrous, whitish brown, bursting throughout its thin lateral margins. 

 Seeds several in each cell, rather large, pale brown, somewhat resembling the 

 human ear in shape, flat, orbicular-reniform, minutely punctato-rugose, with a 

 broad, membranous, finely striated border, which is a little cupped or concave. 



X. EuPHEASiA,* Linn. Eyebright. 



" Calyx tubular or bell-shaped, 4-fid or 4-toothed. Corolla 

 tubular, 2-lipped. Capsule obtuse or emarginate, cells many- 

 seeded. Seeds rather angular, longitudinally ribbed ; hilum sub- 

 apicfil." — Bah. Man. 



1. E. officinalis, L. Common Eyebright. " Leaves ovate deeply 

 toothed, coroUa glabrous, lobes of the lower lip emarginate." — Br. 

 Fl. p. 294. E. B. t. 1416. 



In moist as well as in dry pastures and heathy places ; abundantly. Fl. May 

 — September. . 



Herb extremely variable in luxuriance, from 2 or 3 inches in dry barren pas- 

 tures to nearly a foot in moist shady woods. Root tapering, flexuose, with a few 

 terminal fibres. Stem either nearly simple or copiously and oppositely branched 

 from the base, erect or reclining, obsoletely quadrangulai-, purplish and shining, 

 downy with fine decurved pubescence, the branches erect, decussate, the lowermost 

 ascending and often wavy or flexuose. Leaves small, mostly opposite, a few of 

 those towards the summit alternate or subalternate, quite sessile, ovate, of a deep 

 shining olive-green above, paler beneath, glabrous or slightly hairy, plicate with 

 depressed nervation, deeply and sharply inciso-serrate, with 6 or 6 very acute teeth 

 on each side of the central and terminal one, each tipped with a fine bristle-like 

 point except on the lowermost leaves. Flowers axillary, solitary, nearly sessile, 

 very beautiful on a close inspection. Calyx tubular, 2-lobed, the lobes lateral, 

 bidentate, the teeth equal, lanceolate, acute, single-ribbed, the rib running back 

 to the base of the calyx, and as well as the margins of the latter often spinulose 

 and purplish. Corolla villous externally, the tube cylindrical, slender, as long as 

 the calyx ; upper lip concave, white or pale purplish streaked internally with dark 

 purple, its margin erect, slightly bifid or 2-lobed, the lobes emarginate ; lower lip 

 white, in 3 plane, nearly equal, deeply emarginate segments, of which the ante- 

 rior one is rather the longest, with 3 faint purplish streaks, and a spot of bright 

 yellow at its origin and between the two lateral lobes, which are each marked at 

 the base with three diverging bright purple lines. Stainens smooth ; anthers red- 

 dish brown, cohering, bearded along the commissures of the cells, which are 

 awned at their lower extremities, the awns of the inner lobes of the upper and 



* " Name from Euphrosyne, expressive of joy and pleasure, in allusion to its 

 properties," HooTc., but I imagine more directly derived from lu, hene, and ^^allnj, 

 dico, a plant oi good report, to be well spoken of, and commended for its virtues. 



3 A 



