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S I S O N verticillatum.
22 f
Whorled Honewort.
P E N T A N D R I A Digynia.
G en. C har. Fruit oval, ftriated. Involucra both general
and partial, each o f about 4 leaves.
Spec. Char. Leaflets in capillary, whorled fegments.
Syn . Sifon verticillatum. Linn. Sp. PI. 363. Hudf.
FI. An. 120. TVtth. Bot. Arr. 293. Lightf. Scot.
1096. t. 35.
A S'TILL more uncommon plant than the laft- Mr. Mac-
kay, nurferyman, near Edinburgh, fent a young root of it from
Scotland, which flowered the following year, and from thence
our figure was taken. It grows in moift meadows in the lowlands
of North Britain, and has alfo been obferved in confider-
able plenty in the flat parts of Wales. It is perennial, flowering
about July and Auguft.
The root confifts of oblong flelhy radicles, tapering to a
point. Stem 12 or 18 inches high, eredt, round, ftriated, but
little branched, and almoft naked. Leaves moftly radical and
very remarkable, confifting of a fimple rib, along which are arranged
pairs of deeply cloven leaflets, whofe numerous fegments
are linear, acute, extremely narrow, pointing in all directions,
fo as to form whorls, and that as truly as the flowers do
in the Mentha and other whorled plants, properly fo called, for
thofe grow only on two fides of the ftem, though they feem to
embrace it all round. Umbels eredt, of about 8 or 10 rays,
with a general involucrum of 3 or 4 fhort ovate pointed leaves.
Partial umbels more denfe, and nearly flat, with fimilar, but
more numerous, involucra. Petals nearly equal, inflexed, white.
Antherse purplifh. Germen ovate, ftriated. Fruit flightly com-
prefled, deeply furrowed, crowned with the fhort recurved permanent
ftyles. The feeds are flightly, but not pleafantly, aromatic.