CLXXVIII.— THE PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE. 
Lythrum Salicaria Linne. 
T HOUGH only represented in England by three Families, numbering between 
them some seven genera and little more than twenty species, the Order 
Myrtiflor<e , which nearly corresponds to Bentham and Hooker’s Cohort Myrtales , 
is an extensive group, better represented, however, in the Tropical and Warmer 
Temperate Zones. 
The Order includes both herbaceous and woody plants, mostly with opposite, 
simple, entire leaves ; polysymmetric, cyclic, heterochlamydeous, perfect flowers ; 
a tubular receptacle usually adherent to the ovary ; stamens equal in number to the 
petals, or twice as many ; and two or more united carpels with a single style. 
The great Family Myrtace with about two thousand species, is mainly tropical 
and has no British representatives ; and the yet more numerous Melastomacea’ are 
even more exclusively tropical. Our three British Families are the Lythrace # , 
Onagrace and Haloragidacea: ; and the first of these — a considerable Family with 
conspicuously flowered trees and shrubs, such as Lagerstroemia , in warmer regions — 
is represented with us by the little Water Purslane ( Peplis Portula Linn£) and by two 
species of the genus Lythrum. The members of the Family have generally opposite 
leaves with minute stipules ; flowers in racemes or spikes of verticillasters, usually 
tetramerous or hexamerous ; the receptacular tube free from the ovary ; the calyx 
furnished with a stipular epicalyx, much as in Polentilla ; the sepals valvate and the 
petals crumpled in the bud ; the stamens perigynous ; the ovules usually indefinite 
in number ; and the fruit capsular. 
The genus Lythrum received its name, derived from the Greek \x>9pov , luthron , 
gore, or blood mingled with dust, from Linnaeus, with reference, of course, to 
the colour of the blossoms. It had previously been considered as one with the 
undoubtedly allied Willow-herbs, whence the specific name Salicaria (from Salix, a 
Willow) ; and these plants had in still earlier times been known as Lysimachia 
or Loosestrife, our common species Lythrum Salicaria being then known as 
Lysimachia purpurea spicata , Spiked Purple Loosestrife. Loosestrife or Lysimachia , 
from the Greek Au<xis, lusis , loosing, /xayrj, mache , battle, says Gerard, 
“As Uioscorides and Plinie doe write, tooke his name of a speciall vertue that it hath in appeasing the strife and 
unrulinesse which falleth out among oxen at the plough, if it be put about their yokes : but it rather retaineth and keepeth 
the name Lysimachia of King Lysimachus the son of Agathocles, the first finder out of the nature and vertues of this herbe.” 
We do not now recognise any affinity between the Purple Loosestrife and the 
Primulaceous Yellow Loosestrifes which now bear the generic name Lysimachia. 
Lythrum comprises some twenty species of shrubs and herbs, with square 
branches, axillary flowers which secrete honey, red petals, a long slender style, and 
a two-chambered ovary. Of our two British species, the rare L. Hyssopifolia Linn6 
