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G E U M rivale.
/ â
Water Avens.
I C O S A N D R I A Polygynta.
Gen. Char. Cal. in ten fegments. Petals five. Seeds
with a jointed awn.
Spec. Char. Flowers drooping. Fruit oblong; awns
twilled and feathery.
S y n . Geum rivale. Linn. Sp. PL 7 17- LJudJ. FI. An. 226.
With. Bot. Arr. 538. Relh. Cant. 199.
Caryophyllata montana purpurea. Rail Syn. 253.
T h i s moft elegant plant has had the fortune to be reckoned
much more rare than it really is. Moft botanifts mention it as
a mountain p rodu ction; but it occurs alfo in low lands not un-
frequently, as in meadows between N o rw ich arid T ho rpe ,
Prior’s W o o d between Downham and Lynn, and other parts o f
Norfolk. It grows alfo in Canada, and Tournefort found it in
the Levant. T h e flowers appear in June and July.
R o o t creeping, w oody, reddifh, aftringent and very aromatic,
w ith a clove-like fmell, whence it has been found ufeful in intermittent
fevers. Stem erect, round, bearing two or three fmall
leaves, divided and elegantly drooping at the top, with two or
•three flowers; but as the fruit ripens it becomes erect. T h e
leaves are lyrate, w ith a large lobed terminal leaflet, arid two
or three pair o f fmall intermediate ones among the others. T h e
petals are ereCt, and never expand. T h e rich combination o f
the dark-green wrinkled leaves, with the glowing red-brown
o f the ftem and calyx, and Angularly delicate colour o f the
petals, added to the graceful pofition o f the flowers, render this
one o f the moft pifturefque o f our native plants.
Cultivated in a dry barren foil it grows w e ll, but the flowers
become double and proliferous. Mr. Robfon, to whom we are
obliged for this fpecimen, mentions a variety with yellow flowers
found in the woods o f Yorkfhire, which D r. Smith alfo ob-
ferved at Matlock, and guefled it might be a hybrid between
G . rivale and urbanum. Its awns are hairy as in the former,
its habit, colour, and fize more refembling the latter.