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HOLOS T EUM umbellatum.
Umbelliferous Chickweed.
T R I A N D R I A Trigynict.'
G en. C h ar. Cal. five-leaved. Cor. of five petals.
Capjule one-celled, nearly cylindrical, burfting at
the top.
Spec. C har. F low e r s in um b e ls .
Syn. H o lo fte um umbe llatum. Linn. Sp. PI. 130 .
With. Bot. Arr. 13 2 . Ro/e’s Elements (Appendix),
4 4 5 . /. 2 . / . 4 .
Ceraftium umbellatum. Hudf. FI. An. 201.
T h i s plant was firft difcovered in England by Mr. John
Pitchford, a moft accurate and indefatigable botanift, who
found it in the fpring of 1765, on the walls of Norwich. We
are informed it was a long time before this gentleman’s difco-
very met with any credit, fome of the firft Englifh botanifts
miftaking this plant for Ceraftium femidecandrium. Mr. Rofe
however defcribed and figured it, with its proper fynonyms,
in his Elements of Botany, publifhed in 1775 > a work which
has eminently contributed to explain and recommend the
fyftem and principles of Linnaeus in this country. Soon afterwards
Mr. Hudfon admitted it into the fecond edition of his
Flora, under the genus of Ceraftium, with which it agrees in
habit, and to which the number of its ftamina and ftyles are
faid often nearly to approach. We have not however found
the petals fo regularly bifid as they are in Ceraftium ; nor have
we feen more than three ftamina, and as many ftyles, in each
flower; though it muft be confeffed we have found the cap-
fules with five valves. Content with delineating every part as
it occurred to us, we leave the matter to the decifion of future
obfervers.
The root is fibrous and annual; the whole plant a little
glaucous, and remarkably fmooth, except fome glandular hairs
on the Item, at a little diftance from the flowers. The petals
are occafionally white or reddifh, and irregularly notched at the
top. The flower ftalks are varioufly divaricated at different
ftages of their growth. This fpecimen game from Bury.