* 9 [ 6 o y 3
S A G I N A ere&a.
Upright Pearlwort.
T E T R A N D R I A Tetragynia.
G e n . C h a u . Cal. 4 -lea ved . Petals 4 . Cap/, o f one
c e ll.
SrEC. Char. Stem eredt, nearly tingle-flowered. Calyx
leaves acute. Petals undivided.
S t n . Sagina eredta. Linn. Sp. PI. 185. Hudf. 73.
With. 2,16. Relh. 74. Sibth. 67. Abbot. 40. Curt.
Lond. fa/c. 2. t. 12. D ickf.H ort. Sicc.fa/c. 6. 6.
Alfinella foliis caryophylleis. Rail Syn. 344. t. 15.
ĥ 4 . _ _ _ _ _
T H I S is a little plant of confiderable neatnefs and elegance
of ftrufture, which grows frequently on dry gravelly paftures
and heaths among grafs, flowering in May.
Root fmall and fibrous. Whole herb fmooth and glaucous.
Stems two or three inches high, ftraight, generally very few and
upright, fometimes more numerous and divaricated, each bearing
one or two flowers. Leaves oppofite, lanceolate, acute.
Flower-ftalks folitary, very long, lingle-flowered, frequently
purplifli. Flowers upright, of a bright pearly white. Calyx-
leaves lanceolate, acute, with a membranous edge. Petals
about as long as the calyx, undivided. Stamina four, fhort.
Stigmas four, club-fhaped, nearly feflile, downy. Capfule cylindrical,
undivided, opening with eight or ten teeth, of one
cell, containing many rough kidney-fhaped feeds.
Mr. Curtis has well obTerved that the fruit of this plant is
that of a Cerajlium. It is certainly not that of the other
Saglrus, which is formed with four entire valves, neither does
the habit well agree with the reft of the genus. Profeflor Ehr-
liart accordingly made it a new one by the name of Mcencbia,
perhaps not unjuftly.
It is proper here to correct an accidental fault in our generic
character of Sagina, p. 166, ii capfule with 4 cells,” which
ought to be one cell, and to exprefs our aflent to Mr. Curtis s
opinion of the fpecies there deferibed being a Cerajlium.