and the foot ferry to Sheppey Isle, in Kent, and also in the
third or fourth field on the right hand of the road going
from London Coney towards St. Albans,” seems to belong
to this plant, although referred by Dietrich to F. pumila.
It is perhaps not a rare plant with us, but the species of this
genus are so much alike in habit, and the one before us, in
particular, so much resembles F. dentata in its general appearance,
that we need not wonder that it has been overlooked
till lately.
Root slender,annual; stem erect,angular,and even sometimes
winged, the angles furnished with deflexed hairs or
bristles. Leaves with a finely serrulate margin, oblong;
the lower somewhat obovate and attenuate downwards,
generally entire, but sometimes having a few distant obtuse
teeth fringed at the base : upper oblong, not attenuate, in-
ciso or even pinnatifido-dentate at the base. The segments
acute. As far as the stem is undivided, the leaves are more
or less connate, but at and above the first division they are
usually quite separate. Panicle repeatedly dichotomous.
Flowers whitish or inclining to pink, sessile in the upper
forks of the panicle, the lower widely separate, hardly opening
till towards the end of June. Upper bracteas scariose,
spreading, ovato-lanceolate and acute, or linear and obtuse,
serrato-ciliate, often with one or two large teeth. Fruit
subglobose, somewhat tapering into the calyx, marked with
a narrow continuous channel between the two empty cells,
furnished with three ribs, one on each empty cell and one
on the back of the fertile one. Under a good magnifier the
surface of the fruit appears finely granular. In the primary
variety the calyx is small and of a single leaf, quite entire
or only with a minute tooth on each side, and withering as
the fruit advances to maturity: in the variety /3, which seems
to be the most common, each rib of the fruit terminates in
a distinct division of the calyx, the one proceeding from
the dorsal rib being much the largest, and often terminating
in three teeth; and even the lateral divisions are sometimes
bidentate. The whole calyx is firmer and more persistent
than in «.—J. W oods.