[ »73 ]
S P A R G A N I U M natans.
Floating Bur-reed. 'Y
M 0 N OE C I A Triandrla.
G en. C h a r . Male, Cal. 3-leaved. Cor. none,
Female, Cal. 3-leayecl. Cor. none. Drupa dry,
with i feed.
Spec. Char. Leaves drooping, flat. Heads of flowers
in a Ample fpike, mold of them accompanied by
leaves. Style nop longer than the germeti.
Syn. Sparganium natans. Linn. $p. PI. 1378,
With. Bet. Arr. 1025. F t. Ban. t. 260.
S. fimplex, Hud/. FI. An. 401.
S. minimum. Rail Syn. 437.
' ---- :-------
N T by the Rev. Mr. Hemftedfrom Burwell fens, Cam-
bridgefhire. it prefers a muddy or clay foil, flowering in July.
. Root perennial, creeping, with long fibres, running deep
into the muddy bottoms of ditches or flow ftreatns. Stems
afcending, round, leafy. Leaves linear, narrow, thin and
almoft pellucid, flat; Iheathing and a little channelled towards
the bafe, but without any degree of cartna or mid-rib ;
the lowermoft long and floating, the reft gradually {hotter.
Blowers from the bofoms of the upper leaves, in 3 or 4
folitary little round heads: we can by no means comply
with Linnaeus in calling them amenta, with the definition and
nature of which they do not agree; they are really capitula.
The loweft is on a footftalk. The uppermoft only, or part
of the next, confifts of male flowers; the reft are female.
Calyx (which might perhaps be called corolla) of 3 whitilh
leaves in each flower. Stamina twice as long, capillary.
Germen ovate, very fmooth. Style Ample ; ftigma oblique,
with a fiflure on the upper fide.’ Drupa with 1 feed. We
find the ftigma _ always Ample, and very generally fo (as
Leers obferves) in the common S. ereftum. The Ihortnefs
of that part in the plant before us, feems the beft mark of
diftinftion between it and S. ereflum & fimplex, which are
alfo very diftincd from each other. Our plant, agrees pre-
cifely with Mr. Rofe’s own fpecimens gathered near Norwich,
and with the original Linnsean one intended in both
editions of Sp. Plant. It feems alfo to be the true plant of
Ray and Dillenius. Linnaeus’s Lapland fpecimen however
is certainly not this, but S. fimplex. His confounding them
in Flo. Suecica led Mr. Hudfon into the fame error. We hope
our elucidation of this point will be acceptable to the fcientific
botanift, as it could be fettled by original fpecimens only.