W [ 1948 . ]
EPILOBIUM tetragonum.
Square-stalked Willow-herb.
OCTANDRIA Monogynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. in 4 segments. Petals 4. Capsule
oblong, inferior. Seeds feathered.
Spec. Char. Leaves lanceolate, sessile, minutely toothed.
Stem with four angles. Stigma undivided.
Syn. Epilobium tetragonum. Linn. Sp. P I. 494. Sm.
FI. Brit. 412. Huds. 162. With. 368. Hull. 82.
Relh. 151. Sibth. 122. Albbot. 8 5 . Curt. Land,
fa s c . 2. i. 23.
Lysimachia siliquosa glabra media sive minor. R a il
Syn. 311.
COMMON in watery marshy places, flowering in July.
Root perennial, fibrous. Stem 12 or 18 inches high, erect,
branched, leafy, nearly smooth, roundish in its transverse
section, but marked with four angular ribs at unequal distances
from each other, by which it is known from E. pa-
lustre, t. 346. Leaves generally, if not always, sessile, lanceolate,
smooth, irregularly and minutely toothed, for the most
part alternate. Flowers few, in leafy clusters, small, with
pale purple‘cloven petals, and a club-shaped undivided stigma.
The pod3, flower-stalks, £tnd in some degree the floral leaves,
are slightly hoary.
The supposed variety with stalked and broader leaves,
mentioned by Mr. Curtis, was what he afterwards justly
allowed to be E. roseum of Schreber, see t. 693 ; and which
we confess to have sometimes puzzled us in studying the present
species. How far they are really distinct may still admit
of doubt.