PEP LIS Portula.
Water Purslane.
HEXANDRIA Monogynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. bell-shaped, cut into 12 segments.
Petals 6, placed on the calyx. Caps, superior, of
2 cells.
Spec. Char. Leaves obovate. Petals often wanting.
Syn. Peplis Portula. L inn. Sp. P I. 474. Sm. F I.
B rit. 389. Huds. 147. With. 352. Hull. 76.
Relh. 141. Sihth. 108. Ahhot. 78, Curt. Land,
fa s c . 4. t. 27. Dicks. H. S ic c.fa sc . 4. 8.
Portula. R a ii Syn. 368.
FREQUENT in moist places on a gravelly or sandy soil, and
about shallow pools that are dried up in summer, flowering
from June to the end of August.
Root fibrous, annual. Stems several, prostrate, sometimes
floating, rooting in the mud, simple or branched, square,
smooth, leafy. Leaves opposite, obovate, obtuse, entire,
smooth, tapering at the base into a footstalk. Flowers small,
axillary, solitary, sessile, reddish. Calyx with 6 larger segments,
and as many small recurved ones between them. Petals
small, red, scarcely projecting beyond the calyx, often wanting,
and in general very fugacious. Germen globose, crowned
with a short simple style and capitate stigma. Capsule thin
and pellucid, containing numerous seeds, in 2 hemispheerical
cells, which do not open till tom by accident.
This genus is closely allied to Lythrum, from which it
chiefly differs -in its campanulate, not tubular, calyx, and in
having but half as many stamina.