2757
RUMEX pratensis.
Meadow Dock.
H E X A N U R IA Trigynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. of 3 leaves, combined at the base.
Cor. of 3 petals. Stigmas multifid. Nut triquetrous,
covered by the enlarged petals, which
often bear tubercles.—Hooker.
S p e c . C h a r . Flowers mostly perfect. Enlarged petals
unequal, toothed at the base, with an entire
triangular point; one principally tuberculated.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, wavy. Clusters nearly
leafless. Whorls distinct.
Syn. Rumex pratensis. Mert. 8f Koch, Deut. Ft.
v. 2. 609.
R. cristatus. IVallr. Sched. Crit. 163. Fries, Nov.
Suec. ed. 2. 100.
R. acutus. Spreng. Syst. Veg. v. 2.159.
F 'R O M the marshes of the Adur, near Henfield, Sussex,
where it was first distinguished in 1820. It grows also by
the Arun, at Amberley. Mr. Forster has observed it in
marshes on the Essex side of the Thames, and Mr. Sowerby
by road-sides about the northern outskirts of the metropolis.
It is probably not uncommon, especially in places subject to
winter floods, although generally overlooked from its resemblance
to R. crispus, <.1998. It flowers in June and July.
An authentic specimen, kindly communicated by Mertens
a little before his death, proves it to be, as was previously
supposed, the R. pratensis of the German Flora. Wallroth
first particularly described it, under a name which DeCan-
dolle, it appears, had already assigned to a different species ;
and it is the R. acutus of various southern local Floras, as