Leaves, on the lower part of the stems, small, scattered,
obovate, blunt; the upper ones linear-lanceolate. Brac-
teas 3, unequal, the lower one half as long again as the
others, and about equal to the pedicel, lanceolate, acute,
membranous, 1-nerved, very fugacious. Sepals 5, the 3
exterior minute, oblong, the lateral ones 1-nerved, the superior
one 3-nerved ; the 2 interior large, elliptical, acute,
shorterthan the petals, narrower and scarcely longer than the
fruit, with 3 nerves, the middle one branching on both sides,
the lateral ones only externally, and anastomosing obliquely
at the apex. Cor. fringed. Bundles of filaments hairy within.
Ovarium longer than its stalk. Capsule obcordate, with a
diaphanous margin, its surface covered with small excavated
dots. Seed black, hairy, pendent from a 3-dentate arillus.
In general appearance this plant differs greatly from the
true jP. vulgaris, and is very conspicuous from its pale
purplish blue or white flowers. It occurs plentifully in the
Channel Islands, but is most common in Jersey, where the
specimens figured were gathered on the side of a gully at
St. Aubin’s Bay, June 25, 1838. Mr. Borrer has gathered
on the Newhaven cliff’s and elsewhere in Sussex, specimens
exactly corresponding with those from the Channel Islands.
It is probably the plant found by Mr. E. Forbes in the
Isle of Man, and described by him in the Trans. o f the Edin.
Botan. Soc. pt. 1. p. 35, although he describes the wings as
being blunt, a state in which I find them in what appears
to be the same plant, gathered by myself at Seacombe,
Cheshire, in September, 1837.—C. C. B.