864 OROBANCHACEiE. [Orobwnche. 



Very common throngliout the island, attached to the roots of various plants, 

 but by far the most frequently on clover,* the crops of which it often completely 

 overruns. Fl. Jane — October. 0. 



-E. Med. — In a field adjoining Sandown harraclis, in (Treat profusion, 18-11. 

 About Lee farm, Shanklin. Clover-fields near Godshill church overran with it, 

 1837. In every clover-field about Arreton, Perreton, Redway, &c., in the greatest 

 profusion, 1839. At Binstead, in a field by the Rev, Aug. Hewitt's. At Black- 

 bridge, field at Southlord, by Whitwell ; and near Deane farm. On Plantago 

 Coronopus on the cliffs above Sandown bay, /. A. Hankey, Esq., 1843 !!! On 

 Apargia autumnalis on a bank close to Morton farm. 



W. Med. — Clover-field by the hotel at Freshwater Gate completely overrun 

 with it, 1841. 



/3. In a field near Garretts, in plenty, 1846. In many of the specimens here 

 gathered the flowers were milk-white, more commonly however tinctured with the 

 ordinary purplish colour. 



y. Clover-field by Lee farm, near Shanklin. 



A very variable plant in size and colour, often not more than 4 or 5 inches, at 

 other times more than a foot and a half in height, usually of a dingy purplish 

 brown or bluish colour, occasionally whitish or pale amber, downy all over with 

 jointed pellucid hairs, which are tipped with yellow glands. The scaly tuberous 

 caudex is attached by short filaments to the roots of the clover, from which it 

 derives probably a part of j-ts nourishment only, the earth supplying the remain- 

 der. Stem, simple, solitary (or several emitted laterally from the base of the 

 caudex), roundish, obtusely angular, downy, with several scattered lanceolate 

 scales like those beneath the flowers, filled internally with a white pith. Flowers 

 sessile, or in the larger full-grown plants a few of the lowermost are not uncom- 

 monly on compressed footstalks, often of considerable length, leaving the calyx at 

 the base of the peduncle ; each with a brown, linear, deflexed scale or bractea at 

 its base, of about its own length, and either entire or with a slight tooth near its 

 origin. Sepals ovate, concave, with about 6 faintly marked nerves, cloven about 

 half-way down into 2 subulate fringed segments. Corolla Jths of an inch long, 

 a little curved, more cylindrical than funnel-shaped, tinged with violet in its upper 

 part, downy, with several strong purple ribs ; tipper lip roundish, but appearing 

 arched from its two halves folding a little together at the central rather shallow 

 notch, waved and crenate, veined with purple; lower lip in 3 nearly equal obtuse 

 lobes, curled or rather crisped and plaited irregularly like the upper, notched and 

 veined in the same manner: I have never seen the middle lobe so lengthened out 

 as the fig. in E. Bot. represents it, which in other respects is rather an indifferent 

 plate. Stamens thickly clothed with white hairs on the inner side of the lower 

 dilated portion ol the Jilaments, quite glabrous on their upper contracted part and 

 all along their outer side. Style quite smooth except a few scattered hairs near 

 the summit; stigma of 2 very distinct, diverging, purplish lobes. Ovarium per- 

 fectly glabrous, with a small, bright yellow, glandular, scarcely enlarged spot at 

 the base in front, but not encircling it with a tumid ring as in O. major. Capsule 

 oblong or elliptical, rusty brown, tipped with a part of the style. Seeds extremely 

 minute, scarcely more than half as large as those of O. major, brownish and 

 scarcely shining, ovato-oblong, attenuated at one end, covered with a network of 

 far less regular and more elongated cells. 



I understand from Mr. Loe, jun., of Newchurcb, that pigs eat this plant with 

 avidity, and that a person in that village is in the habit of feeding those animals 

 with it. It is probably highly nutritious, being extremely succulent, and pos- 

 sessing a sweetish, succeeded by a slightly bitter, flavour. 



I have found this species at the foot of the Pelham woods with the flowers 

 densely crowded into interrupted spirals along the stem, and in one specimen the 



* Mr. G. E. Smith has found this species on Angelica Archangelica (0. Picri- 

 dis, Sckultz) in a garden, as well as on Pelargonium in pots, of which I have 

 seen examples. 



