THE YELLOW RATTLE. 107 



stalk being erect, and either simple or very slightly branched, 

 square in section, smooth in surface, and more or less spotted 

 with purple. The leaves are opposite to each other, each 

 pair being at right angles to those immediately above and 

 below it, and often separated from them by a considerable 

 space of bare stalk. The leaves are sessile or stalkless, 

 heart-shaped at base, in form somewhat like a wedge. The 

 veins are conspicuous, and the edges of the leaves are 

 deeply notched or serrated, and often slightly turning. 

 The floral leaves are broader in proportion to their length 

 than those lower on the stem, and the flowers spring from 

 the axils of these upper or bracteal leaves. The flowers are 

 on very short foot-stalks. The calyx, even in the early 

 stages of the flowering, is large and conspicuous, very 

 inflated, and flattened so that its side view is much larger 

 than its edge view, terminating in four equal teeth, and 

 contracting at the mouth, a rare pale green in colour. The 

 corolla is in one piece, or monopetalous. The upper part, or 

 lip, is very convex; the lower lip divided into three segments, 

 the middle or lowest one being also the largest. The upper 

 lip ordinarily has a purple spot or blotch upon it. The 

 stamens rest closely under the upper lip, two of them 

 being on shorter filaments than the other two. The 

 anthers are curious, as they are covered with little bristly 

 hairs. The seed-vessel is a capsule, orbicular, but flattened 

 in one direction. It contains several rather large and flat 

 seeds. These seeds when ripe rattle in the dry capsule, 

 and give the plant its familiar name of yellow rattle. 

 Culpepper and some other old writers call the plant the 

 rattle-grass, and amongst the names given as current in 

 Grerarde's time we find the penny-grass grass being in 

 olden times a sort of generic title for almost all sorts of 



