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<)o H O T T O N I A paluftris,
Water Violet or Featherfoil.
P E N T A N D R I A Monogynia.
G en. C har. Corolla falver-fhaped. Stamina ftanding
on the margin of the tube. Capfule with i cell.
Spec. Char. Stalk bearing many flowers in whorls.
Syn. Hottonia paluftris. Linn. Sp. PL 208. HudJ,\
FI. A n . 85. With. Bot. A rr. 207. Relh. Cant.
83. Sihth. Ox. 73. Curt. Lond. fa fc. 1. t. 11
Dickf. H. S icc.fa fc. 7 - 7 '
Hottonia. Raii Syn. 283.
C L E A R ditches and ponds on a gravelly foil, in various
parts of England, are frequently adorned with the beautiful
Hottonia, which may vie with many o f the molt admired exotics
in elegance, having indeed, like fome other European aquatics,
very much the air of a tropical plant. Its Englith name, Water
Violet, is far from apt, even though we underftand it as con-
trafting this plant with the Dame’s Violet, or Hefperis, to which
its refemblance is flight, and its affinity none, for it belongs to
the fame natural order as the Primrofe and Pimpernel. -
The white fibrous radicles run deep into the ground, and
from the crown of the perennial rootfpring feveral leaves in a ftar-
like form, and a few long runners, which are leafy and take root
at their extremities, flowering the next year. The leaves are
fmooth, bright-green, elegantly and deeply pinnatifid, or pe&i-
nated, their fegments linear and entire, varying in breadth, acute.
All thefe parts are conftantly under water. The ftalk alone
rifes above the furface to the height f t 8 or 10 inches, being
folitary, ereft, round, naked, fmooth below, roughifh above,
and bearing 5 or 6 whorls, each of 5 to 10 pedunculated flowers,
with an oblong braftea at the bafe of each flower-ftalk.
T he flowers are not unlike thofe of a Primula. They are naturally
5-cleft, but may be found with 6 or 7 fegments, and as
many ftamina. Their colour is pale purple, with a yellow
tube and orifice. Capfule globular, with many feeds ftanding
on a large globofe receptacle. Stigma concave. It flowers in
UBoerliaave named this genus in honour of his predeceflor in
the Leyden Profeflorfhip, Peter Hotton, of whofe character and
abilities he fpeaks with great refped in his Index to the Leyden
Garden.