Caryophyllece.\ 
THE COLONY OP VICTORIA. 
211 
and branches are quite interwoven and radicant, whilst the sepals are blunt. It grows along the banks of the 
Murray River and its tributaries, and on the adjoining lagoons in humid sandy soil, and resembles externally 
the Himalaian St. decumbens (Edgeworth, in Transact. Linn. Soc. xx. 35), which is, however, already 
recognized by its smaller petals and downy branches. States of St. csespitosa exist, in which the filaments 
excel in length the sepals. The flowers of St. pungens and St. glauca bear the greatest resemblance to each 
other. 
Stellaria media, Withering, Bot. Arrang . i. 418; Villars, Flor. Delph . iii. 615 ; Engl. Bot. 537; 
Sm. Engl. Flor. ii. 301; Wight, Icon. Plant. Ind. Orient, iii. 947; J. Hooli. Flor. Tasman, i. 43; S. flac- 
cida, Hooli . Compan. to Bot. Mag. ii. 275; J. Hooli. injouvn. of Bot. ii. 411; Alsine media, Linne, Spec. 
Plant. 389. 
Annual; stems weak, glabrous or imperfectly downy; leaves ovate, acuminate, or sometimes cordate 
or rhomboid or lanceolate, stalked or subsessile, glabrous or imperfectly ciliated; pedicels axillary and termi¬ 
nal, solitary or forming a leafy terminal cyme, often elongated; sepals lanceolate-ovate, one-nerved or indis¬ 
tinctly three-nerved; petals bipartite, seldom wanting; stamens 3-10; anthers purple, finally black; capsule 
deeply six-valved; columella short; seeds brown, tuberculate-rough. 
In shady humid places, on cultivated gTOund, in forest valleys, on the gravelly banks of rivers from the 
lowlands to the highest alps of Australia, perhaps indigenous. Frequent in the cooler parts of the northern 
hemisphere, transmigrated to most parts of the globe. 
A flaccid, decumbent, laxly diffused or ascendent herb, veiy variable in size. Stems and branches 
almost cylindrical or quadrangular, conspersed with pale articulated soft short hair, or from joint to joint 
alternately unilateral-downy. Petioles broad, channelled, about as long as the leaf or shorter or almost 
obliterated, somewhat dilated towards the base, glabrous or ciliated. Leaves from 2 lines to about 1 inch 
long, opaque, saturated-green, of uniform color on both sides, flat, of tender herbaceous consistence, with a 
conspicuous midnerve and a faint intramarginal and spreading lateral nerves, finely and immersedly net- 
veined, usually very slightly dotted-scabrous. Pedicels slender, almost capillary, about as long as or often 
longer than the leaves, attaining* sometimes the length of 2J inches, seldom quite glabrous, often scattered, 
hairy or fined on the inner side with soft whitish downs, in age usually bent downward. Sepals 1J-2| lines 
long, obtuse or acute or even occasionally acuminate, more or less conspersed with articulate hair, sometimes, 
however, quite glabrous; the inner ones transparent towards the margin; the midnerve more or less strongly 
developed or even evanescent towards the summit; the lateral nerves often only towards the base perceptible. 
Petals white, tender-membranous, from 1-4 lines long*, deeply cleft into narrow-oblong* lobes, finely veined; 
the undivided portion forming a short somewhat yellowish unguis. Filaments linear-setaceous, persistent, 
glabrous, about as long* as the petals or somewhat shorter, externally at the base glandulous-tumescent. 
Anthers g-J fine long, versatile, consisting of two oblique-ovate or ellipsoid cells, bursting* with introrse- 
marginal dehiscence; those of the normal variety at least verging from red through purple into black. 
Pollen-grains yellowish. Styles J—1J line long, recurved, internally stigmatose. Capsule ovate, hardly or 
considerably longer than the calyx, membranous, deeply cleft. Funicles arising from a short basal columna, 
mostly not so long as the seeds. Seeds in each capsule several, almost opaque or a little shining, renate- 
globose, dark- or black-brown, about \ line long, seriate-tuberculate, slightly compressed. Embryo horse- 
shoe-shaped, slender, cylindrical. Albumen conspicuous. Cotyledons about as long but a little broader than 
the radicle. 
The plant, which inhabits our forests and alps, constitutes a race somewhat different to the ordinary 
form, which occurs here also as a common garden weed. The stems and branches are more quadrangular 
and rather scattered- than unilateral-downy; the leaves are usually sessile and somewhat ciliated; the sepals 
are often more acute and less indistinctly nerved; the petals and even the stamens are almost always longer 
than the calyx, and the styles are also more extended. It seems, however, as pointed out by Dr. Hooker, 
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