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LEMNA trifulca.
Ivy-leaved Duck-weed.
M O N O E C IA Diandria.
G en. C har. Male, Cal. o f x leaf. Cor. none.
Female, Cal. o f i leaf. Cor. none. Style i .
Cap/, with feveral feeds.
Spe c . C har. Leaves on footftalks, lanceolate, proliferous.
Syn . Lemna trifulca. Linn. Sp. PI. 1376. Sm. FI.
Brit. 956. Hudf. 399. IVith. 43. Hull. 202.
Relh. 346. Sibth. 14. Abbot. 198.
Lenticula aquatica trifulca. Raii Syn. 129.
\ V H E N the late Profeflor J. Sibthorp had been at great
pains and expenfe for the accommodation of aquatic plants in
the Oxford garden, Dr. Stokes withed, as an indemnification
for all his trouble, that he might fee the flowers of a Lemna.
This fatisfaftion however was denied him. A very few foreign
botanifts only have feen the fru6tification of L . minor, gibba
andpolyrrhiza j no one has hitherto given any account of that
of L . trifulca, though the plant is fufficiently common in
ftagnant waters throughout Europe. Mr. D. Turner at length
met with this grand dejideratum early in June laft near Yarmouth,
and we cannot withhold it from the public.
L . trifulca is a pale-green, fmooth, pellucid herb, floating
in frefh water, near or upon the furface, and confifts of feveral
lanceolate, entire, fometimes waved or toothed, leaves or fronds,
each having a footftalk at its bafe, and producing, from its -
centre beneath, one folitary Ample root, and a pair of young
leaves, looking like Jobes of the old one. The root is tipped
with a membranous {heath. The flowers fpring from a lateral
chink, whofe margin forms the calyx. Moftof the flowers we
have feen are males, having 2 afcending white fmooth ftamina,
each with a 2-lobed yellow anthera. Infome an ovate fuperior
germen ftandr between the {lamina, bearing a Ample ftyle,
with a cloven ftigma. W e have not detected any flowers
purely female.