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ALYS SUM sativum.
Gold of Pleasure.
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TETRAD YNAMIA Siliculosa.
Gen. Char. Pouch nearly entire, bordered, tipped
with the style: valves concave, parallel to the partition.
Two of the filaments (in some species)
marked with a small tooth.
S pec. Char. Stem herbaceous. Leaves lanceolate,
arrow-shaped. Pouch obovate, inflated.
Syn. Alyssum sativum. Sm. FI. Brit. 679.
Myagrum. Rail Syn. 302.
M. sativum. Linn. Sp. PI. 894. Huds. 277. Hull. 142.
Moenchia sativa. Gmel. Syst. v. 2. 971. With. 5 6 2.
Hull. 142.
T h i s plant, remarkable for the ill-founded pomposity of its
English name, and for the difficulty of settling its genus in a
botanical system, occurs accidentally in cultivated fields,
chiefly among flax, its seeds being imported from abroad; for
it neither seems an original native, nor does it ever establish
or propagate itself long amongst us. Much trouble would
have been spared to the writers of British Floras, at least to
those who investigate principles, if it had never come hither
at all. Every one can indeed decide that it is no Myagrum;
but unless the genus of Alyssum were totally reformed, we do
not see how this plant can be separated from it.
Our specimen was gathered in July last, in Lakenheath
field by Wangford, Suffolk, by Mr. T. K. Eagle. The root
is small, annual. Stem erect, round, leafy, smooth or a little
downy, panicled. Leaves alternate, lanceolate, nearly entire,
roughish to the touch, clasping the stem with their arrow-
shaped base. Flowers small, pale yellow, on long simple
stalks forming a corymbus which soon becomes a spike. Calyx
bristly, a little spreading. Petals obovate, entire. Stamina all
without teeth. Pouch obovate, inflated, erect, entire, surrounded
by a compressed border, crowned with the style.
Seeds many in each cell, roundish, pendulous on little stalks
from the edge of the partition.