CL. II.] 



3. CIRCJEA LUTETIANA. 



CLASS II. 

 3. 



Circaea Lutetian a, L. 



Hexenkraut, Stephanskraut, Waldkletten. — Fren. Herbe de 

 St Etienne. — Engl. Enchanter's Night-shade. — Swed. GuL 

 sirse. 



About St John's day, an interesting plant appears in our 

 dark and moist woods. It has a woody, articulated, creeping 

 root, which is commonly thickly entwined with the roots of 

 the tree, and is hence difficult to be torn up. From this root 

 a small stem arises, about the thickness of a corn-stalk, straight, 

 round, simple, with fine and undistinguishable hairs, green in 

 its colour, and from a foot and a half to two feet in length. 



From the stem, leaf-stalks shoot out, opposite to one ano- 

 ther, at distances which are about an inch from one another, 

 having undistinguishable hairs, angular, almost marginated 

 (28.), an inch long, and standing open ; and upon these are 

 leaves completely oval-shaped, almost in the form of a heart, 

 with undistinguishable hairs, obtusely pointed, with notches 

 at intervals on the margin, nerved and veined, an inch and a 

 half long, and an inch broad. 



On the top of the stem stands the many-blossomed bunch 

 (84.), the principal and secondary stalks of which are more 

 strongly ciliated than the lower part of the stem. The se- 

 condary stalks, from three to four lines in length, stand al- 

 most horizontal, afterwards they are reflex ; they bear at 

 their lower part the ovaria, of a round shape, afterwards 

 pear-shaped, studded with hooked bristles (80.) ; over the 

 ovaria are two calyx-leaves, of an oval or oblong form, re- 

 flex, of a reddish colour, and two petals of a pale red, of an 



