Chenopodium.] chenopodiacej^. 419 



y. Spikes cymosely branched. 



On rich waste ground, dung-hills, village-gieens, and especially in or about 

 farm-yards ; frequent and general throughout the island. Fl. August, Septem- 

 ber. 0. 



E.Med. — ^. Abundant at Troublefields and at Ninham farms, near Ryde. 

 Farm-yard at Palmer's near Wootton. Common on St. Helens green, and at 

 Sandown, about the cottages and farms. At Ventnor and Niton. Moist ground 

 by Little Whitefield farm, 1844. Plentiful in the farm-yard of Upper Morton, 

 by Brading, 1849. In a farm-yard at Adgeton, in plenty, and very luxuriant, 

 1849. At Arreton, Hasely, Lower Bill, and other places, in plenty. 



W.Med.—jS.BjYsLSoi'imiW. Grange, by Brixton. At Chillerton. Compton 

 farm, and Brook-house farm-yards. 



y. Near Yaverland farm, in the road leading down to the marshes. In the 

 farm-yard at Sweepwash, Appuldurcombe. At Yaffovd mill, near Shurwell. 



Stem \—3 feet high, erect or ascending, obtusely angular, green or reddish, 

 smooth, shining and flexuose, sometimes a little branched at the base, more usually 

 simple : the main stem terminates in a very compound pyramidal spike, the branches 

 of which are panicled, more or less diverging and quite leafless. Leaves triangu- 

 lar, sinuato-dentate, with sharp teeth a little pointing forwards or hooked, wedge- 

 shaped at the base, with 3 principal very p-rorainent ribs, of a rather dark green 

 above, a little shining, somewhat thick and fleshy, mostly with some degree of 

 mealiness beneath: the leaves become less toothed or nearly entire as they 

 approach the summit. Spikes upright, at first short and thick, much lengthened 

 out as the seed ripens, compound chiefly towards the base, with a few leaves inter- 

 spersed for about ^rd the length of the lowermost spikes, and which gradually 

 diminish in frequency on those above them, wholly disappearing on the upper- 

 most spikes, which are subtended by the single leaf only, from the axil of which 

 they spring. ii'/wwcTO green, in small, globular, rather remote clusters, all 5-clefi, and, 

 as Car as I can find, perfect.* Seed dark brown, nearly black, horizontal, covered 

 by the connivent perianth, 4 or 5 times as large as in the next species, orbicular, 

 compressed, but less so than in 0. rubrum, hence rather lenticular, the periphery 

 rounded, minutely rugoso-pnnctulate and highly polished when freed from the 

 very close, rough, friable pericarp. 



The var. y. I have never seen in fruit. It has the aspect of small specimens of 

 C. urbicum, except that the leaves are much less regularly toothed, the teeth 

 fewer and mostly confined to the lower half of the leaf, where there is for the 

 most part one very large ; the uppermost leaves are nearly entire ; flowers in axil- 

 lary and terminal racemes, quite leafless, branched in various degrees, almost as 

 much cymose in one specimen as in C. murale. Mr. G. E. Smith has observed 

 the same variety in Sussex, but I suspect it to arise from a diseased state of the 

 plant, having never seen this form of inflorescence in large vigorous plants, but 

 only on small, discoloured, unhealthy specimens. It has come up in the garden 

 at St. John's, from seed, I believe, of the common form ; nor is the same trans- 

 formation of the inflorescence from the simple spicate to the subcymose character 

 complete in these casual specimens. 



The much larger seeds distinguish this species from C ruhrum. Gaudin's 

 description is excellent, agreeing exactly with our pl>nt, which is faithfully de- 

 picted in E. Botany, excepting that the clusters of flowers are more remote in the 

 figure, but in this respect there is a great variation. Our Isle-of-Wight plant 

 seems to be always the C intermedium, Mertens et Koch, separated originally 

 from C. urbicum by a nice distinction without a diSerejice, and since repudiated 

 by its surviving author in his Syn. Fl. Germ, et Helv. 



* Besides the vertical position of the seed, Mertens and Koch assert the flowers 

 of C. rubrum to be 3-parted, with one or two stamens, the central flower only of 

 each cluster 5-cleft. 



