r
m.
OENOTHERA tenella.
Slender-twigged OEnothera.
Natural Order. Onagrariæ. J u s s . a n n .m u s .3 ,p .3 \5 .
OE N O T H E R A . Supra,fol.5. et 133.
OE. tenella, ramis gracilibus patulis, foliis sessilibus lanceolato-
linearibus spathulatisve obtusis integerrimis dentatisque,
petalis calyce duplo longiore, filamentis alternis brevissimis,
capsulis sulcatis cylindricis curvatis.
OEnothera tenella. Cavan. le . 4. jp. 66. Z.396./. 2. R u iz et Pav.
ß o r.peruv.3 .p. SO. Í.3 1 6 ./.6 . Sims Botan. magaz.2A21. Pers.
synops. 1. p . 408. Spreng. syst. veg. 2. p . 228. Swt. hort. brit.
p . 152,
Annual. Stems a little suffrutescent at the base, more
or less branched: branches slender, spreading, smooth
or slightly pubescent. Leaves sessile, variable, of a pale
green, or slightly glaucescent; the lower ones spathulate,
blunt, and much attenuated at the base; middle
ones lanceolately linear, and not so blunt; upper ones
linear and acute; all channelled on the upper side, and
bluntly keeled on the lower, entire, or sometimes slightly
toothed, with very small blunt teeth, clothed on both
sides with very short woolly down. Flowers axillary,
solitary, sessile. Calyx with a very short tube, four-
cleft ; segments lanceolate, acute, concave inwards, the
points of each pair cohering, and clothed with a short
thin pubescence. Petals 4, inserted in the upper part
of the tube of the calyx, obovate or broadly wedge-
shaped, slightly crenulate at the points, striate, about
double the length of the segments of the calyx, of a
bluish purple. Stamens 8, inserted in the upper part of
the tube; filaments flat, every other one', very short.
Ttf J 1£ 16■