S P I R iE A Filipendula.
Common Dr op wort.
<3lo
IC O SA N D R IA Pentagynia•
Gen. Char. Cal. 5-cleft. Petals 5. Capjules with
many feeds.
Spec. Char. Leaves interruptedly pinnated; leaflets
uniform, ferrated. Stem herbaceous. Flowery
cymofe, with many ftyles.
S y n . Spirtea Filipendula. Linn. Sp. PI. 702. Hudf.
FI. An. 217. With. Bot. An. 518. Relb. Cant. 191.
Sibtb. Oxon. 157.
Filipendula. Raii Syn. 259.
I n mountainous paftures on a calcareous foil, efpecially in
Cambridgefhire, Worcefterfhire, and Surrey, plentiful enough
wherever it occurs at all. In Mr. Locke’s park near Leather-
head this elegant plant grows abundantly, flowering early in
Jifly.
The very extraordinary perennial root confifts of oval folid
lumps hanging by threads from the main body, which lumps,
being refervoirsof nourifhment, enable the herb to refill drought,
and render it befides very difficult to be eradicated. Stem ere£t,
about a foot high, with a few alternate fmooth leaves, which are
a fine example of the folium interrupte pinnatum, confifting of
one fet of larger leaflets, with intermediate fmaller ones ; all of
them are ferrated and jagged, and all the leaflets of each fet are
uniform, or nearly corresponding in fize. A pair of roundifh
united indented ftipulae, at the bafe of each compound leaf, embrace
the ftem. Flowers in a cymofe loofe panicle, cream-coloured,
often tipped with red in a wild flate. The ftyles in
this and S. Ulmaria are numerous; fo that a young ftudent
would be puzzled to find our only 2 fpecies of Spinza in the
order Pentagynia, to which however the genus is very rightly
referred by Linnaeus, moft of the other numerous fpecies (if not
all) having but 5 ftyles. Thefe irregular fpecies ought always
to be enumerated at the end of the order or clafs to which they
individually belong, as Linnaeus generally praftifed.
In a garden foil this plant grows very luxuriant, and has often
double flowers. The whole herb is aftringent.