SCROrilL'LAIlIACEiE. 107 
common V. Chamsedrys, but tbe stems are less wiry, more decum- 
bent, and hairy all round ; the loaves always stalked, the stalk 
generally about half as long as the blade, tbe incisions are not nearly 
so deep and more acute. The racemes are shorter, 2 to 4 inches 
long, with the flowers much more laxly disposed. The flowers are 
n<>t above ] inch in diameter, nearly white, with reddish-lilac veins. 
The sepals are much broader. The capsule is half an inch long, not 
at all narrowed towards the base, and of a very different shape. The 
plant is of a lighter green, and turns black in drying. The hairs on 
the leaves are shorter. 
Mountain Speechcell. 
French, Ycronique de Montague. German, Berg Ehrenpreis. 
SPECIES XVI— VERONICA SCUTELLATA. Linn. 
Plate DCCCCLXXXVIII. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XX. Tab. MDCCIII. Figs. 2, 3. 
Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1728. 
Stem very brittle, slender, decumbent and rooting at the ba^e, 
paniculately branched, or more often only at the base ; flowering 
branches erect or ascending-erect. Leaves sessile, lanceolate- 
strapshaped or lanceolate, or oblong-lanceolate, rounded at the 
base, acute, entire or callously-denticulate. Flowers rather few, in 
lax axillary racemes, slightly elongating in fruit. Peduncles soli- 
tary, alternate, longer than the leaves ; pedicels much longer than 
their bracts and calyx, usually three or four times as long, at 
length divaricate or reflexed. Sepals 4, oval-ovate, acute, glabrous 
or ciliated with jointed hairs, which are sometimes tipped with 
minute glands. Capsule half as long again as the calyx, sub- 
orbicular, broader than long, very much compressed, emarginate 
or slightly cordate at the base, deeply obcordate at the apex, with 
elevated lines, glabrous, or very sparingly hairy, bordered, but the 
border without prominent points, sometimes ciliated with gland- 
tipped hairs ; lobes slightly divaricate, separated by a right-angled 
notch. Style rather shorter than the capsule. Plant glabrous, or 
more rarely pubescent. 
In spongy bogs, wet meadows, banks of ponds and ditches and 
pools in which the water dries up in summer. Bather scarce, but 
universally distributed. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer 
and Ai^tumn. 
Ptootstock producing numerous barren shoots or stolons, which 
