CHAPTER II 

 WALL-RUE 



Belvisia ruta-muraria. 



Rootstock creeping, short, chaffy: scales minute, strongly 

 striate-reticulate in blackish-brown, linear or linear-lanceolate, 

 acuminate, entire or ciliate: leaves fascicled at end of rootstock: 

 roots springing from bases of petioles, one to each petiole. 



Leaves evergreen. 



Petioles two to three inches long, usually as long as or longer 

 than blades, more or less grooved on face, otherwise rounded or 

 above faintly grooved on sides; at base deep brown or dark 

 purple, slightly rigid, glandular, chaffless or bearing at base a 

 few scales like those of rootstock; above green, herbaceous, 

 glabrous, glands large, grayish, globose, unicellular: fibrovas- 

 cular bundle solitary, flattened-cylindrical. 



Blades two-fifths of an inch to two and one-third inches long, 

 ovate or ovate-deltoid, below bi-tri-pinnate, above once pinnate: 

 pinnae alternate, oblique to rachis, the compound stalked: ultimate 

 divisions alternate, one-twelfth to two-fifths of an inch long, 

 roundish-obovate to cuneate-rhomboid or cuneiform, at base 

 entire, upper margin crenate or dentate or incised or in yoxmg 

 plants undulate : rachises green, channelled on face: surfaces 

 glabrous: color bluish-green or olive: texture coriaceous or sub- 

 coriaceous. 



