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L OB E L I A Dortmanna.
Water Lobelia.
■ ' S T N G E N E S I A Monogamia.
G e n . C h a r . Cal. 5-c le ft. Cor. o f one p e ta l, irregular.
Capfule in fe rio r , with 2 or 3 cells.
S p e c . C h a r . Leaves linear, 2-celled, entire. Stem
almoft naked.
S y n . Lobelia Dortmanna. Linn. Sp. P I. 1318. Hudf.
FI. An. 3 7 7 . With. Bot. Arr. 950. Light/. FI.
Scot. 505, t. 21.
Gladiolus lacuftris. Ger. em. 105. Dortmanni. Rail
Syn. *287.
.
H E beautiful lakes of "Weftmoreland and Cumberland
abound with this elegant and fingular plant. Their gravelly
bottoms are generally covered with thick tufts of its leaves, the
flowering part of the Item being all that rifes above the water 5
fo that in fudden floods it is fometimes entirely overflowed, not
having, like fome vegetables, the means of accommodating
itfelf to fuch quick changes, either by a more or lefs inclined
pofition, or a fpiral ftructure. Dr. Woodville favoured
us with this recent fpecimen from Kefwick Lake. The plant
grows alfo in Wales and Scotland, flowering in July.
Root of long Ample whitilh flbres, perennial. Leaves almoft
wholly radical, linear, entire, and very blunt, recurved,
fmooth, chiefly remarkable for their internal ftructure, as they
con A ft of two longitudinal hollow cells with a partition between.
Stem ereft, Ample, varying in length according to the
depth of the water wherein it grows, round, fmooth, hollow,
terminated by a Ample upright loofe fpike or racemus of elegant
pale purplilh drooping flowers, ftanding on fhort foot-
ftalks with a fmall blunt bradtea at the bafe of each. The feg-
ments of the corolla are flightly bearded at their bafe, as are
the antherse at their tip. The ftigma too is ciliated. The ger-
men in ripening becomes eredt; an example, among innumerable
others, (hewing it is not the weight of drooping flowers
that makes them take an inclined pofition; the fruit of fuch,
though much the heavier, being almoft always upright, for the
feeds are thus more furely retained till ripe, and then more
extenflvely fcattered; whereas by the inclined corolla, or rather,
in this genus, by the incurved flgure of the antherse themfelves,
the pollen is (heltered from wet.— This herb abounds with
jnilky juice.