and this name is now generally adopted. Some little doubt
may indeed be entertained of the identity of M. lingulata
and M. ccespitosa, since Steudel and Hochstetten, as Hooker
has observed, give the two as distinct in their enumeration
of the plants of Germany and Switzerland.
However this may be, the plant before us is well distinguished
from M. palustris by the appressed bristles on the
stem, the more deeply divided calyx, and the entire (not
emarginate) segments of the corolla. The limb of the corolla
is usually flat when fully expanded, not always'con-
cave as has been inadvertently stated; but it is much smaller
and less conspicuous than in M. palustris, being in general
but little longer than the calyx, whilst in that it is usually
larger than it is figured in t. 1973. In both, however, it
varies a little in size.
Root annual, or at most biennial, fibrous, not stolonife-
rous, nor creeping; but radicles are thrown out from the
lower part of the stem. Stems mostly several, varying in
being erect or procumbent, and in length from a few inches
to two feet, producing axillary branches, usually almost
from the base. Leaves pale green, lingulate, obtuse, sometimes
emarginate, sprinkled, like the stem, with appressed
bristles ; the lower ones tapering to an indistinct bordered
stalk; the edges, chiefly of the upper ones, decurrent, but
so slightly as to affect but little the roundness of the stem.
Flower-stalks about as long as the calyx whilst in flower;
becoming afterward twice as long, spreading, and at length
deflexed. Calyx bell-shaped, slightly rounded at the base,
divided about half-way into broad, somewhat acute, oblong-
triangular, spreading segments, each furnished, like the
leaves, with a prominent central and two obsolete lateral
nerves, which unite in a minute callus at the point. Style
shorter than the tube of the corolla. (In M. palustris it is
as long as the tube.) Stigma capitate, concave. Lobes of
the fruit diverging from the persistent base of the style,
shining, dark brown, ovlate or of a rounder figure, sharply
two-edged, carinate towards the point on the gibbous upper
side.
M. repens of Don, which is found to retain its characters
when raised from seed in a garden, much resembles the present
species, but has the pubescence of the stem spreading,
and the segments of the corolla slightly emarginate. Small
leaves usually subtend many of the flowers, chiefly in the
lateral racemes; and such leaves are occasionally,but more
rarely, found in the racemes of M. ccespitosa.—W.B.