Annual ? — Flowers in July and August.. 
Root tapering, somewhat woody. Stems numerous, prostrate, 
very much branched, leafy, round, somewhat woody, toughish, 
covered with straight spreading hairs. Leaves inversely egg- 
shaped, or elliptical, bluntish, on short stalks ; clothed, on both 
sides, with prominent, bristly hairs. Slipulas lateral, between the 
leaves, in pairs, large, membranous, egg-shaped, pointed, fringed 
with bristly hairs. Flowers small, green, nearly sessile, about 6 to 
10 together, in somewhat leafy clusters, either axillary, or opposite 
to a solitary leaf. Bracteas very white, ciliated, like the stipulas. 
Calyx covered with strong prominent hairs, and, as Mr. Babing- 
ton observes, appearing, when closed, like a little bur ; segments 
egg-spear-shaped, bluntish, edged with white. Corolla of 5, very 
narrow, strap-shaped petals, resembling filaments without anthers, 
and described as such by some authors. Stamens about half the 
length of the calyx ; filaments rather narrower than the petals, and 
alternate with them ; anthers of 2 roundish lobes. Capsule ellip- 
tical, 1-seeded. 
» 
This plant is said to be a native throughout Europe, but it is extremely rare, 
in a wild state, in England. The small plant figured was from the Oxford Bo- 
tanic Garden, where it comes up annually, as a weed, in some of the gravel walks 
without the walls of the garden. When it grows in a richer soil it often becomes 
much larger than it is represented in the accompanying plate; and a single 
plant now (Oct. 22, 1838,) growing in one of the flower borders in the same 
Garden, spreads over a space of ground above four feet in circumference, some 
of the branches measuring eleven inches long. 
The late Mr. Stackhouse, Dr. Withering, and some other distinguished Bo- 
tanists, considered Herniaria hirsuta as not specificallydisiinctfrom H. glabra ; 
and Professor Strengee has united them, and I think H. ciliata also, under the 
name of Herniaria vulgaris. 
The distinguishing characters of the three British species (if they really are 
species, and we have the authority of some of the most eminent and experienced 
Botanists of the present day for considering them so) seem to rest principally on 
the different kind and degree of pubescence with which they are clothed. In 
Herniaria hirsuta the stems, leaves, and calyx, are thickly covered with strong, 
spreading hairs ; in H. ciliata, according to Mr. Babington’s observations, the 
stems are clothed with very minute decurved hairs, the leaves egg-shaped and 
fringed; in I{. glabra the pubescence of the stems is the same as in H. ciliata, 
but the leaves are oval-oblong and smooth, not fringed. All the three species 
are of very humble growth, and possess little either in appearance or properties 
to attract attention. They are slightly astringent, and were formerly thought to 
be useful in the cure of Ruptures, but they are now disregarded as a medicine. 
Cows, sheep, and horses are said to eat these plants ; goats and swine to 
refuse them. 
