** Prickly.

3. R. Grossularia, Linn. Common Gooseberry.

Prickles 1-3

at the base of the young branches; peduncles hairy, single-flowered, with a pair of minute bracteas; leaves rounded, 5-lobed and cut; fruit more or less hairy and glandulose. E. Bot. t. 1295. E. Fl. v. i. p. 335. Hook. Br. Fl. p. 123.

Hedges and thickets, scarcely wild; common. Fl. April, May. h. Stem bushy, branches widely spreading. Leaves alternate, in fascicles, hairy, mostly so beneath, on short pubescent ciliato-glandulose petioles. Flowers green. Sepals reflexed. Berry green.

36. HEDERA.

1. H. Helix, Linn.

Linn. Ivy.

Common Ivy. Leaves cordate, with 3-5

angular lobes, those of the flowering branches ovate, acuminate; E. Bot. t. 1267. E. Fl. v. i. p. 334. Hook. Br.

umbels erect.

Fl. p. 123.

An evergreen of excessive elegance and an universal favourite, ever enfolding our hedges, rocks, ruins, and trunks of trees, in a rich entangled mantle of verdure and beauty. Fl. October, November. h.

Stem branched, very long, trailing on the ground, or climbing by densely tufted supporting fibres. Leaves dark green, shining and veiny, in trailing plants or on the climbing stems broad cordate and angularly lobed, but changing to an ovato-acuminate form on the flowering branches which are only developed when the plant has nearly surmounted the object against which it is climbing. Flowers small, pale green, in many-flowered umbels, their pedicels clothed with delicate starry pubescence, and bracteated at the base. Sepals very minute. Petals

reflexed. Berries smooth and black.

The greatest elevation at which I recollect to have seen this plant growing in Shropshire was near the summit of the Caradoc Hill, where it most magnificently overspread the perpendicular and exposed face of one of the rocks.

PENTANDRIA-DIGYNIA.

37. CHENOPODIUM.

Linn. Goose-foot.

* Leaves plane, undivided.

1. C. polyspermum, Linn. Many-seeded Goose-foot. Stem erect or procumbent, simple or branched; leaves ovato-elliptical, entire, acute, obtuse or emarginate, mucronate; flowers in axillary compound racemes, cymose, branches dichotomous, divaricate, with a solitary flower in the forks, leafless ; seeds depressed, blackish-brown, shining, round, obsoletely punctulate, obtuse at the margins. E. Bot. tt. 1481 & 1480. E. Fl. v. ii. p. 15. a. & B. Hook. Br. Fl. p. 141. C. acutifolium, Sm. E. Fl. v. ii. p. 15. Waste places, partially overflowed during winter; not common. September. O.

Astley, near Shrewsbury; Mr. E. Elsmere, junr.

Spare.

Pit near Sharpstones Hill.

Fl. August,

Near Ludlow; Mr. H.

A very variable plant in all its parts as well as in its size, and its different states appear to have given rise to the idea of two distinct species, C. polyspermum and C. acutifolium of English Flora. Sir W. J. Hooker in Br. Fl. p. 141, expresses

a doubt of these species being permanently distinct, and the following results of a careful examination of very numerous specimens from the Sharpstones Hill locality tend to confirm this opinion:

Stems 3-12 or 18 inches high, erect, angular, branched, branches opposite or nearly so, divaricate, lower ones elongated and spreading on the ground. În many instances the upper portion of the stem had become checked and stunted in growth near the ground, in which case the lower branches were occasionally elongated, prostrate and simple. Leaves ovato-elliptical, smooth, deep green, veiny, paler beneath, tapering at the base into petioles, obtusely or acutely pointed or emarginate, all tipped with a small mucro. All these various forms of the leaves repeatedly occured on the same individual plant. The veins of the leaves and the stem were often tinged with red. Racemes shorter than the leaves, compound, cymose, spreading and leafless, nearly sessile in the axils of the leaves, from whence their branches immediately spring and divide in a dichotomous manner, with a solitary sessile flower (sometimes however supported on a pedicel) in the forks of the subdivisions, thus presenting at first sight the appearance of two distinct racemes springing from the same point. In some cases the racemes, especially those in the lower portion of the plant, were very large compound and spreading in a nearly regular repeatedly dichotomous manner and perfectly leafless; in others, the racemes were small and very contracted, the divisions very few but still dichotomous and divaricate; whilst in a third state, one-half of the cymose racemes appeared to have been by some means suppressed and reduced to a few flowers only which remained nearly sessile in the axil, whilst the other half had been in consequence unusually developed into a branch with small leaves at intervals bearing in their axils small contracted but still dichotomous racemes or clusters of flowers, and thus exhibiting the appearance of an elongated interrupted leafy spike. These different states of inflorescence were like the leaves all to be observed sometimes on the same specimen, nor did they appear to be accompanied by any particular form of leaf. Calyx of the fruit lax, not converging or enveloping the fruit. The seeds were similar in all the forms, dark or blackish-brown, shining, depressed, round, notched, obsoletely punctulate, obtuse at the margins. In a very large and luxuriant specimen from Astley, the leaves had a large tooth on one side, as remarked also by Withering Arr. Br. Pl. 3rd ed. ii. p. 273.

These forms were also distinctly recognized in a series of specimens sent from Battersea, near London. In one of these all the leaves were emarginate with a mucro in the sinus, and the inflorescence remarkably large, cymose, and dichotomously branched, precisely resembling the figure of C. polyspermum in E. Bot. t. 1480. The accurate Mr. Purton, in Midl. Flora, vol. 3, p. 24, states that the characters of both species were united in his specimens, and doubts if they were really distinct, attributing the decumbent character to age or a greater state of luxuriance.

** Leaves plane, toothed, angled or lobed.

2. C. intermedium, Mert. & Koch. Upright Goose-foot. Stem erect, scarcely branched; leaves triangular, elongated and toothed at the base, acute, sinuato-dentate, teeth unequal, sharply acuminate, with 3 principal ribs at the base; flowers in axillary and terminal, erect, straight, subsimple, nearly leafless spikes; seeds depressed, exsculpato-punctate, obtuse at the margins. Hook. Br. Fl. 4th ed. p. 124. Mert. & Koch. v. ii. p. 297. Meyer Fl. Alt. v. i. p. 403. Host. Fl. Aust. v. i. p. 322. C. rhombifolium, Reich. Fl. Excurs. 3749. Mühlenb. ap. Willd. en Hort. Berol. v. i. p. 288. C. urbicum, Gaud. Fl. Helv. v. ii. p. 247. Bot. Gall. v. i. p. 397. C. urbicum (of Sm. E. Fl. not of Linn.) E. Bot. t. 717. E. Fl. v. ii. p. 10. Hook. Br. Fl. 3rd ed. p. 142.

ww

Waste places; rare. Fl. August. O.

Hadnall, near Shrewsbury; Mr. E Elsmere, junr.!

Stem erect, scarcely branched, square, furrowed, often red. Lower leaves in pairs, opposite, petiolate, large, elongated on each side at the base into a bidentate lobe, deeply and unequally sinuato-dentate, smooth, veiny, bright green, paler beneath and covered with mealy particles which are also partially scattered on the upper surface. Upper leaves alternate, petiolate, triangular, nearly entire, acute, elongated on each side into a large single tooth above the subcuneate base, with, as in all the other leaves, 3 principal ribs at the base. Flowers yellowish green, sessile and crowded, in small, dense, rather remote clusters on the straight and erect spikes.

Very similar in general appearance to Orthospermum rubrum (Chenopodium rubrum, Linn.) but well distinguished by all the leaves invariably having 3 principal ribs at the base and by the horizontal, not vertical seed. Our plant agrees with the description of C. urbicum of Engl. Flora, which is assuredly not the C. urbicum of Linnæus, since that is said to have the leaves sparingly toothed : "folüs triangularibus subdentatis," Sp. Pl. 318, "folüs triangularibus parce dentatis," Bluff and Fing. Comp. Fl. Germ. 2nd ed. v. i. p. 449. sumed that C. urbicum, Linn, is also a native of England, since the following synonyms belong to it, and not to intermedium: Sm. Fl. Br. v. i. p. 273. Fl. Angl. 104.

It is pre

Huds.

3. C. album, Linn. White Goose-foot. White Goose-foot. Stem erect, branched; leaves ovate, inclining to rhomboid, sinuato-dentate, upper ones oblong, nearly entire; flowers in compound, branched, somewhat leafy racemes; seeds depressed, smooth and shining, margins obtuse. E. Bot. t. 1723. E. Fl. v. ii. p. 13. Hook. Br. Fl. p. 143.

Waste places, cultivated ground, dunghills, &c.; common, Fl. July, Aug. O. Herbage covered with a whitish mealy substance. Stems 1-2 feet or more high, erect, more or less branched, obtusely angular and furrowed, streaked with green and white, sometimes reddish. Leaves very variable in width and in the teeth of their upper half. Spikes compound, partly leafy, clusters alternate, sessile, dense, aggregate. Seed round, black, shining and smooth.

B. Leaves green, more entire; spikes elongated, more branched. Hook. Br. Fl. p. 143. C. album y. Engl. Fl. v. ii. p. 13.

C. viride, Linn.

8. & e.

In similar situations and equally common.

38. ORTHOSPORUM. Meyer. Upright-seed Mercury. 1. O. Bonus Henricus, Meyer. Good King Henry Mercury. Leaves triangular, arrow-shaped, entire; spikes compound, terminal and axillary, erect, leafless. Chenopodium Bonus Henricus, Linn. E. Bot. t. 1033. E. Fl. v. ii. p. 9. Hook. Br. Fl. p. 142.

Waste ground and road-sides; not common. Fl. August. 4.

Bromfield, near Ludlow; Mr. H. Spare. Grinshill church-yard; Mr. E. Elsmere, junr.! Welbach near Shrewsbury; Mr. T. Bodenham. Near Buildwas Abbey; Mr. F. Dickinson.

Uffington. Sandford, near Westfelton. Near St. Mary's Water-lane gateway, Shrewsbury.

Stem 12-18 inches high, spreading and branched below, striated. Leaves large, dark green, alternate, on long petioles, glabrous and shining above, unctuous and mealy beneath, margins wavy. Spikes tapering, compound, clusters dense and crowded. Flowers green, mealy. Calyx bordered with an abrupt membrane. Stigmas elongated, papillose on the upper side, spreading. Seed vertical, kidneyshaped.