Anagallis.] peimulace^. 403 



leaves, smooth, solid, succulent and shining, green or reddish, rooting for the most 

 part at the lower joints. Leaves opposite, never, I believe, in threes or fours, bright 

 green above, paler, somewhat glaucous and shining beneath, mostly sprinkled with 

 a few minute black dots, ovate or roundish ovate, subcordale, acute, with a small 

 callous point, the margins roughish with minute cartilaginous serratures, suddenly 

 contracted into their very short, broad, channelled petioles, that are curved [up- 

 wards and forwards, and have a narrow marginal dilatation or auricle on each 

 side of ibeir somewhat gibbous and clasping bases. Peduncles axillary and oppo- 

 site or solitary, when in flower as long as or longer than the leaves, filiform, 

 single-flowered, more or less erect and wavy, in fruit strongly and even spirally 

 recurved. Flowers in size, colour and appearance much resembling the blossoms 

 of the exotic Dysandra repens, though very difl'erent in their structure, which ap- 

 proaches that of Anagallis arvensis, the present species connecting that genus 

 with the genuine LysimachieEE. Calyx cleft for about Jths of its entire depth, 

 the segments eqiial, linear-lanceolate, subulato-acuminate, faintly 3-ribbed, spread' 

 ing horizontally, somewhat keeled at the back, their edges slightly membranous 

 and glandulosely subserrate. Corolla nearly flat or salver-shaped, longer than 

 the calyx, from 5 to 7 lines in diameter, bright yellow, cleft down to the very 

 short tube into 5 ovate, obovate or ovato-oblong segments, attenuated into claw- 

 like bases of a darker colour and shining, their superior margins somewhat jagged, 

 minutely crenulate or nearly entire, fringed with minute, very shortly stalked, pel- 

 lucid glands. Stamens 5, yellow, perfectly free or unconnected below, filiform, 

 slightly thickened upwards, quite glabrous, shorter than the corolla; anthers 

 linear-oblong, attached to the filament by one extremity, and at length recurved: 

 between, and in the same plane with, the stamens, are short glandular processes 

 (abortive stamens?), forming a ring at the mouth of the almost obsolete tube of 

 the corolla. Style long, slender, greenish, a little thickened upwards. Capsules 

 small, globose, membranous and pellucid, tipped with the long slender style, 

 much shorter than the calyx, 5-valved, according to Babington (Man. of Br. Bot.) 

 usually dividing longitudinally (transversely, as in Anagallis ?) into two parts, 

 sometimes indehiscent, rarely with 4 or 5 valves. 



A very ornamental plant on rockwork or in pots, for apartments, its long slen- 

 der stems gracefully depending from the vessel on all sides, and exceeding the 

 more showy L. Nummularia in the elegance of its leaves and flowers. 



III. Anagallis, Linn. Pimpernel. 



" Calyx 5-partite. Corolla nearly rotate. Stamens 5, hairy. 

 Capsule bursting all round transversely." — Br. Fl. 



1. A. arvensis, L. Common Pimpernel. Poor Man's Weather- 

 glass. " Stems ascending or subprocumbent branched, leaves 

 opposite or ternate ovate sessile dotted beneath, peduncles longer 

 than the leaves, calyx nearly as long as the rotate corolla." — Br. 

 Fl. p. 333. E. B. t. 529. 



/3. Flowers blue. A. CEerulea, Schreb. : Sin. E. Fl. i. p. 281. E. B. xxvi. t. 

 1823. Fl. Dan. ix. t. 1570. 



y. Flowers pale pink or rose-coloured, with a purple eye. 



[S. Flowers white. — Edrs,'] 



Universal and abundant in cultivated and waste ground, by waysides, under 

 walls, &c., also in woods and pastures, but less copiously. Fl. May — November. 



O- 



/3. In cornfields, rare. Field between Westridge and St. John's, 1839. Field 



at St. Clare, near the sea, 1844, the Lady Catherine Hareourt. Sandown, on a 

 piece of waste ground near the sea, Miss Lovell. At Bonchurch, Dr. Martin. 

 Quarr copse, a single specimen. Lady Knowles ! 



y. Border of a field between Weeks's and Little Smallbrook, rather plentifully, 

 1B37, Miss Theodore Price ; but I could not find it the year following ! Field at 



