t I?* ]
C O M A R U M palute
Marjh Cinquefoil\
8 o
ICO S A N 1) A IA Polygynies
Gen; Char.- Cal. in io fegments. Petals 5, lefs thari
the calyx. Receptacle of the feeds ovate, fpongy,
permanent.
Spec. Char. . . , . , .
S yn. Comarum paluftre. Linn. Bp. PI. 718. Hudj<
FI. An. 227. With. Bot. Am 540. Relb. Cant.
200.
Pentaphylloides paluftre rubrum. Rail Syn, 236,
N o t unfrequent in muddy togs arid ditches, efpecially ill
the north, and in Norfolk, flowering in jfune and July. It is
among our more handfome native plants, and "may be intro-*
duced with advantage among American fhrubs, in a border of
bog earth»
The roots are perennial, long and creeping, and, like the
Item, round, and of a reddifh brown. The leaves are gene-*
rally, but not always fmooth : leaflets moftly five, rarely feven,
in the top leaf three, more or lefs obtufe, ftrongly ferrated,
glaucous beneath, with a pair of ftipulse (moftly entire) running
up the common leaf-ftalk. Flowers on partial footftalks, produced
in an irregular, fomewhat dichotomous manner. Their
colour and ftruclurc our figure exprefles. The calyx leaves are
lobed or entire. Every part of the flower is permanent, enfolding
the fruit, which confifts of numerous oval compreffed
feeds, covering a conical fpongy receptacle, which does not
fall off when the feeds are ripe. In this laft eircu'mftance only
the genus differs from Fragaria.- Haller thought the difference
too flight, and therefore joins thefe two genera, along with
Potentilla, into one. But Linnseus well obferves, in Flora Lap-
ponica (fee. 209^, that the genera of this natural order are all
very nearly allied (the order beingyo natural), and that we mull
either keep them as he has defined them,-or unite the above
with Rubus, Rofa, Geum, Dryas, &c. into one, which would
be very paradoxical.
i H
\ifti 1 tyyty.