402 



plantag/ne.*: 



Order are common in Great Britain as wayside, meadow, and 

 maritime plants, and some of them are almost world-wide in their 

 distribution. The seeds abound in a tasteless mucilage, which 

 has been used as a substitute for Linseed in medicine, and to 

 stiffen muslin. 



i. Plantago. — Terrestrial plants with perfect flowers in spikes. 

 2. Littorella. — Waterside plants with stamens and carpels in 



different flowers ; staminate 

 flowers solitary, stalked ; 

 carpellate flowers sessile. 



i. PlantAgo (Plantain). 

 — Terrestrial herbs with 

 perfect flowers in spikes; 

 calyx 4-cleft, the segments 

 reflexed ; corolla tubular, 

 with 4 spreading lobes; 

 stamens 4, very long ; ovary 

 2 — 4-chambered ; capsule 

 splitting all round. (Name, 

 the Classical Latin name.) 



1. P. major (Greater 

 Plantain, Way-bread.) — 

 Leaves radical, ascending, 

 broadly oblong, on long, 

 channelled stalks, 3 — 7- 

 ribbed ; flowers in a very 

 long, tapering spike, on a 

 short, cylindrical stalk ; 

 anthers purple; capsule 2- 

 chambered, 8 — 16-seeded. 

 — Borders of fields and 

 waysides ; abundant. Well 

 known for its spikes of 

 fruit, the seeds in which 

 cage-birds. — Fl. May — September. 



plaktXgo lanceolata {Ribwort Plantain). 



are a favourite food of 

 Perennial. 



2. P. media (Hoary Plantain, Lamb's-tongue). — Leaves downy, 

 broadly elliptical, on short, flat stalks, lying so close to the ground 

 as to destroy all vegetation beneath, and even to leave the impres- 

 sion of their 5 — 9 ribs on the ground ; flowers in a close, cylin- 

 drical spike, shorter than that of P. major, but on a longer, 

 cylindrical, downy peduncle, fragrant, and conspicuous from their 

 lilac bracts, and filaments, and cream-coloured anthers ; capsule 2- 



