406 PHIMULACE^. [Glaux. 



V. Glaux,* Linn. Sea Milkwort.! 



"Perianth single, inferior, campanulate, coloured, 5-lobed. 

 Capsule globose, 1-celled, 5-valved, 5-seeded. Seeds on a glo- 

 bose, central, free placenta." — Br. Fl. 



1. Gr. maritima, L. Sea Milkwoi't. Black Saltivort. Sm. E. 

 Fl. i. p. 337. Br. Fl. p. 331. Lind. Syn. p. 183. E. B. i. t. 13. 



In muddy salt-marshes, and on the grassy margins of creeks and tide-rivers ; 

 frequent. Fl. Jane, July. !(.. 



E.Med. — Most abundantly in the marsh-meadows behind the Dover, Ryde, 

 especially along the cuts, drains and ditches that intersect them. At the month 

 of the Wootton river, in plenty. 



W. Med. — Abundant by the Medina above W. Cowes. Marshy sides of the 

 Yar, under Beckett's copse, &c. In Gurnet bay, Mis$ 6. Kilderbee. 



Whole plant perfectly smooth, glabrous and succulent. Root perennial, of 

 several reddish white, tapering, branched fibres. Stem solitary (or several?), the 

 lower part often creeping or rhizomatous and emitting runners, in smaller plants 

 often erect, more usually, as in the larger, decumbent or ascending, and some- 

 times rooting below, from 2 or 3 to 6, 8 or 12 inches long, pale green, solid and 

 rounded, but scored by a decurrent groove from the basal corners of the leaves to 

 the axils of those next below, more or less copiously branched, often from the very 

 bottom, branches erect or ascending, very leafy. Leaves from 2 or 3 to 8 or 10 

 lines in length, the lower ones mostly opposite, the rest alternate or scattered, 

 quite entire, elliptical, ovato-elliptieal or elliptic-lanceolate, obtuse or pointed, ses- 

 sile, crowded, suberect and imbricate on the shorter branches, more distant and 

 spreading on the larger, flat, bright shining green, a little fleshy and succulent, 

 sprinkled On both sides, but most so on the upper side, with minute pits or pimc- 

 ture-like depressions, their margins cartilaginous under a magnifier. Stipules 

 none. Ftotvers axillary, solitary, mostly about the middle of the stem, on 

 extremely short, almost obsolete, terete peduncles, or quite sessile, sometimes 

 appearing crowded into leafy clusters, about 3 lines in diameter. Perianth sin- 

 gle, petaloid, white, suffused, streaked and dotted with rose-red, most deeply near 

 the base externally, sometimes nearly colourless, shortly campanulate, cleft above 

 half-way into 5 obovate or obovato-oblong, nearly equal, very entire segments, 

 which are spreading at summit. Stamens erect, inserted at the very base of the 

 germen, on the bottom of the perianth and alternate with the segments, which 

 they about equal in length ; filaments deep rose-colour, simple ; anthers at length 

 deciduous, roundish ; pollen yellowish green. Germen ovato-globose, greenish, 

 plain or streaked with purple, tapered into the conico-cylindrical simple style, 

 which is greenish or purplish and about as long as the stamens. Capsules small, 

 sessile, ovoido-globose, mucronato-acuminate, at first succulent, finally dry and 

 whitish, 5-valved. Seeds from 2 or 3 to 8 or 9 (usually 5 or 6). 



This plant has much of the habit of a Li/thrum. The seeds much resemble 

 those of Primula and Anagallis, whilst the capsule is nearly that of Lysimachia. 

 Fries says it is reported to bear a rotate infundibuliforra corolla in the S. of 

 Europe, but no such increase of the floral envelope is noticed by Bertoloni. 



By a strange misquotation in the ' English Flora,' poor Hudson is represented 

 as making our Glaux a variety of Herniaria glabra ! — a blunder the latter is 

 wholly guiltless of, having fully described that plant in its proper place. The 

 synonyms and references to Kay and Petiver relate to H. ciliata of Babington. 



* Name : the r?va;u| of Dioscorides, from yXavKOf, sea-green or glaucous (glau- 

 cus, Lat.) ; such being the colour of the leaves beneath. See Glaucium, p. 24. 



t The English name for this plant was derived from an opinion entertained by 

 the ancients of its eflicacy in augmenting the secretion of milk. 



