RuBcus.] sanLACE/E. 509 



In woods, copses and bushy heathy places, on hedgehanks, by roadsides and 

 borders of fields, chiefly in the North and North-east of the island ; very frequent. 

 Fl. spring and auliiiDn. !(.. 



E. Med. — Very common about Ryde, in Qiiarr copse, Apley wood. Shore copse, 

 wood between Ninham farm and the Newport road, and on bushy banks by the 

 Wootton river above Kite hill. Woods along the river below Wootton bridge, 

 1843, especially in that upon the eastern bank, near Ash-lodge farm, in which it 

 abounds, but of stunted growth. Not unfrequent all about that neighbourhood, 

 as in the road from Fishbourne leading to the Newport road, in two places, 1849. 

 On Ashey common, sparingly, 1849. Alverston lynch. About Newchurch, pro- 

 fusely in Hill copse and on Skinner's hill. On Hill heath, at the North end, are 

 some very large large patches. 



W. Med. — Very abundant in Guniard wood, near W. Cowes. 



An extremely tough, rigid, bushy plant, having somewhat the aspect of a myr- 

 tle, often growing in dense clumps oi large patches in open grassy places by road- 

 sides. Root perennial, of many hard almost woody knots or tubers, emitting 

 copious long, thick, pale, simple or branched fibres. Stems several, biennial, 

 1 — 3 feet in height, bluntly angular above, simple and rounded below, finely stri- 

 ated, solid, dark green, with many simple or slightly compound, opposite, alter- 

 nate or scattered branches. Phyllodia elliptical-ovate, dark green, variable in 

 breadth, about an inch long, quite entire, with several obscure converging ribs, 

 terminating in a very pungent whitish or brownish spine, the upper surface of 

 each phyllodiura averted from the stem, or in a somewhat prone position from the 

 twisting of the very short footstalk. Flowers vamute, solitary or sometimes two in 

 the concave and reversed upper side of each phyllodium, and from which they 

 seem to spring. * Perianth in 6 greenish divisions, of which the three outer are 

 ovate, with inflexed points ; the three inner linear-lanceolate, tinged with violet, 

 their margins revolute ; occupying the place of petals, to which name they appear 

 as much entitled as in any flower with a double perianth. Anthers 3, 2-lobed, 

 quite sessile on the summit of the hollow bluntly angular nectary, closely united 

 together or coalescing, so that their form and number are with difliculty seen in 

 the full-blown flower, but easily shown to be three in the dissected bud. There is 

 a rudimentary germen in all the male flowers I have hitherto examined. Pistil- 

 late flowers similar to the staminate, but without anthers. Ovary enclosed within 

 the violet-coloured fleshy nectary. Stigma peltate, somewhat 3-lobed, just pro^ 

 truding beyond the tubular nectary and covered with a viscid juice. Berries glo- 

 bose or subdepressed, bright coral-red, about the size of a small cherry, filled 

 with a yellowish, mealy, not ill-tasting pulp. Seed mostly by abortion solitary or 

 geminate, large, whitish, spherical, or, when two are present, flattened on their 

 inner side, somewhat translucent, with a tough horny albumen. 



The flowers of the Butcher's-broom are often produced as early as January if 

 the weather be tolerably mild, and the berries remain hanging through the win- 

 ter. Butchers are said to make use of it in some parts of England for driving 

 away, and perchance impaling with its sharp spines, the flies that settle on their 



* They are however in fact axillary, on peduncles several times their own 

 length, running beneath the epidermis of the phyllodium to their origin in the 

 main stem. Analogy with other species of the genus would lead iis to consider 

 this subcuticular peduncle as the common stalk of a raceme, of which only one 

 flower is developed at a time at its free extremity, the rest expanding as they are 

 successively protruded, as is plain from their production for a long time together 

 from the same point, as well as from the remains of the pedicels and bracts, not 

 to mention the nascent buds, amongst which the later flowers are seated. Each 

 flower has an irregular membranous bract beneath it; and springing from the 

 phyllodium itself, just at the point of emergence of the flower-stalk, is a small, 

 scariously winged, deciduous spine or bristle, answering to the leafy appendage 

 found in some nearly allied species, but so readily falling away as to be not always 

 perceptible. 



