ing advances, beset all around, but more densely on two
opposite sides, w'ith short hairs curved upwards, intermixed
with a few longer ones ; the short leaf-stalks; the somewhat
twisted segments of the calyx, much enlarged after flowering
; the corolla shorter than the calyx ; the recurved fruit-
stalk ; the obcordate capsule, with a narrow sinus, and
covered with gland-tipped hairs ; and the peltate, wrinkled,
shell-like seeds. But in this species the herbage is pale
green, by no means greyish as in that, and usually less
hairy: the leaves are ovate, very slightly cordate at the
base, less wrinkled, less deeply and more regularly serrated,
or crenate: the calyx-segments are narrower, ovate-lanceolate,
or oblong, blunt; not ovate, and acute; considerably
longer, in the seeding state, than the capsule, which
in the other they scarcely exceed ; not imbricated at the
base, as in that, but more divaricated in pairs : the corolla,
in that all blue with deeper veins, is in this pale blue or
rose-colour in the upper half, white in the lower, or often
entirely white : the capsule has an obscure keel, not observable
in the other: the seeds are about 6 in each cell, (Lin-
naaus, in Flora Suecica, says 4 ;) in the other twice as numerous,
and but half the size.
Fries describes the segments of the calyx in V. agrestis as
nerveless, which our observation does not confirm. Reichen-
bach’s figure shows 3 nerves. The hairs at the base and
edges of the calyx are not always tipped with glands. Contrary
to Fries’s remark, we find the segments more frequently
cut in the supposed V. polita than in this; and the
style, which is somewhat variable in both in the proportion
of its length to that of the lobes of the' capsule, not more
remarkably exserted in the one than in the other. In
Curtis’s figure of V. agrestis, the peculiar character of the
calyx is not expressed, and the corolla (in our copy at least)
is coloured of a uniform dull blue.
V. persica, ( V. arvensis /3. of the FI. Grceca,) described in
various European Floras, under the names of V. Tourne-
fortii, V. Buxbaumii, and V. hospita, and perhaps not distinct
from the true V.Jiliformis, is another species nearly allied to
V. agrestis. It is known however, at first sight, by flowers
almost as large as fflose of V. Chamcedrps, and is well characterized
by its compressed capsule, with divaricated and
sharply carinate lobes. This plant is reported to grow near
Berwick-upon-Tweed. Fries observes that V. persica of
Sprengel in his St/st. Veg. appears to be the true V. agrestis,
and his V. agrestis partly V. polita and partly V. opaca.
The last-named plant we have not yet seen. Fries propounds
it, with some hesitation, as distinct from V. agrestis.
—W. B.