CRUCIFERiE. 



79 



On limestone rocks, old walls, and 

 stony places, in central and southern 

 Europe, from Sweden to the Crimea. 

 Confined, inBri tain, to the limestone tracts 

 of the west and north of England and 

 Wales, and of southern Ireland. FL 

 spring. 



Fig. 99. 



XXII. CAPSEL. CAPSELLA. 



Annuals, with entire or pinnate leaves and small white flowers, dis- 

 tinguished from Cress and Hutchinsia by having several seeds in each 

 cell of the pod, from Fennycress by the pod not winged, and the radicle 

 incumbent on the back of the cotyledons. 



A genus of a single one, or of two or three, European and Asiatic 

 species, according to the limits assigned to it by different botanists. 



1. Shepherd's-purse Capsel. Capsella Bursa-pastoris, DC. 



(Eig. 100.) 

 {Thlaspi, Eng. Bot. t. 1485. Shepherd* s-purse.) 



Hoot tapering, often to a great depth. 

 Radical leaves spread on the ground, 

 pinnatifid, with a larger ovate or trian- 

 gular terminal lobe, or sometimes entire. 

 Stem erect, from a few inches to above 

 a foot high, rather rough and often hairy, 

 with a few oblong or lanceolate, entire 

 or toothed leaves, clasping the stem with 

 projecting auricles. Pods in a long 

 loose raceme, usually triangular, truncate 

 at the top, with the angles slightly 

 rounded, and narrowed at the base, 

 sometimes notched at the top and al- 

 most obcordate. Seeds 10 or 12 in each 

 cell. 



Probably of European or west Asiatic 

 origin, but now one of the commonest weeds in cultivated and waste 

 places, nearly all over the globe without the tropics. Abundant in 

 Britain. FL nearly all the year round. 



Fig. 100. 



