﻿157. —Hook. Brit. FI. p.348. — Lightf. FI. Scot. v. i. p. 444. — Sibtli. FI. Oxon. 

 p. 242.— Abbot’s FI. Bedf. p. 173.— Port. Midi. FI. v. ii. p. 370.— Relh. FI. 

 Cantab. (3rd ed.) p. 326.— Hook. FI. Soot, p.234. — Grev. FI. Kdin. p. 170. — 

 FI. Devon, pp. 132 & 156. — Johnston’s FI. of Berw. v. i. p. 176. — Walk. FI. of 

 Oxf. p.227. — Bab. FI. Bath. p. 28. — Mack. Catal. of PI. of Ireland, p. 71. — 

 Lampsana, Ray’s Syn. p. 173. — Johnson’s Gerarde, p. 255. 



Locautiks. — Very common, both on waste and cultivated ground. 



Annual. — Flowers from May to August. 



Root small, tapering, branched, tough, and fibrous. Stem soli- 

 tary, from 1 to 3 or 4 feet high, upright, roundish, striated, branch- 

 ed, leafy, hollow, nearly or quile smooth in the upper part, hairy 

 in the lower. Leaves alternate, pliant and thin ; those at the 

 root, and on the lower part of the stem, petioiated, egg-shaped, 

 and often furnished with 1 or 2 pair of pinnulse ; those higher up, 

 spear-shaped ; uppermost strap-shaped, sessile ; all more or less 

 hairy, and toothed at the margin. Panicle repeatedly divided, 

 upright. Flower-stalks round, naked, smooth, of equal thickness 

 throughout, each accompanied by a strap-spear-shaped, pointed 

 bractea at its base. Calyx smooth, somewhat cylindrical ; outer 

 scales small, egg-shaped ; closely embracing the base of the inner,, 

 which are, generally, 8 in number. Flowers small, bright yel- 

 low ; florets from 15 to 18. Styles purplish. Stigmas dark pur- 

 plish green. 



The English name, Nipple-wort , alludes to an old idea of the 

 herb curing sore breasts ; for which Camerarius reports that it 

 has been used in Prussia. The young leaves in the Spring have 

 the taste of radishes, and are eaten by the inhabitants of Constan- 

 tinople raw, as a sallad ; and in some parts of England they are 

 boiled and used as greens, but have a bitter and disagreeable 

 flavour. According to the observations of Linnaeus, cows, sheep, 

 horses, and swine, eat this plant ; goats refuse it. 



A very pretty parasitical fungus, JEcidium Compositarum, of 

 Martius; 2E. Prenanthis, of Greville*, is very abundant on 

 the under surface of the radical leaves of this species of Lapsana, 

 in the neighbourhood of Oxford, in the months of April and May ; 

 and later in the season, both the radical and cauline leaves, fre- 

 quently become almost completely covered with a more minute 

 parasite, the Uredo Cichoracearum of Decandolle & Greville f, 

 which gives the plant the appearance of having been sprinkled all 

 over with a kind of dark rusty-coloured powder. 



* Flora Edinensis, p. 445. 



t Ibid, p. 435. 



