Descriptive botany, or, The art of describing plants correctly in scientific language : for self-instruction and the use of schools / by Professor Lindley.

  • Lindley, John, 1799-1865.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Descriptive botany, or, The art of describing plants correctly in scientific language : for self-instruction and the use of schools / by Professor Lindley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MYOSOTIS PALUSTRIS: Forget-me-not. Corolliflohal Exogens. Nat. Order, Boraginaceje, or Borageworts. Rhizomes long, creeping, blackish, with numerous tufts of strong fibres. Herb bright green, rather succulent, from 6 to 12 or 18 inches high. Stems ascending obliquely, terete, branching, leafy, either nearly smooth or clothed with more or less spreading bristly hairs. Leaves sessile, nearly uniform, elliptic-oblong, bluntish, 1£ or 2 inches long, clothed on both sides with small close-pressed bristles, which scarcely render them rough to the sight or touch. Racemes scorpioid, many-flowered, 2 or 3 together, on a terminal leafless stalk or elongation of each branch ; each general and partial stalk, as well as both sides of the calyx, clothed with erect, or close-pressed, short, straight, simple, rigid, pale, uniform, bristly hairs; pedicels at first crowded into a dense revolute spike, which unrols gradually, and after flowering is greatly elongated, the stalks spreading almost horizontally as the achsenes ripen, forming a very lax straight raceme. Calyx about half the length of each pedicel, after the flower is past, bell-shaped at the base'; the limb divided half-way down into 5 broad, triangular, rather expanding segments. Corolla : tube about as long as the calyx, whitish; limb longer, horizontal, pink before expansion, then of a beautiful enamelled sky blue, with w'hite elevated ribs at the base of each rounded, scarcely notched segment; the fornices yellow. Stamens 5, alternate with the lobes of the corolla, included within the tube; anthers purplish brown, oblong, 2-celled. Ovary superior, 4-lobed; style basal, the length of the tube of the corolla; stigma capitate, umbilicated. (Smith, a little modernised.) Achaenes ovate, obtuse, blackish, highly polished, erect, rounded at back, slightly keeled in front, with a small scar at the base, by which they are attached rather obliquely to the torus. Seed solitary, fixed by the middle, exalbuminous, dicotyledonous, with a superior radicle. VERONICA CHAMJSDRYS : The Germander Speedwell. Corollifloral Exogens. Nat. Order, Scrophulariace.e, or Linariads. Stems ascending, branched, terete, with two hairy lines on opposite sides. Leaves opposite, sessile, ovate, slightly cordate, obtuse, nigose, pilose, coarsely serrated. Racemes axillary, erect, drooping at the point; peduncle naked, twice as long as the leaves; bracts ovate, acute at base, entire, herbaceous, ciliated, rather shorter than the hairy pedicels. Calyx spreading, 4-parted, rather unequal, with two of the lobes larger than the others. Corolla rotate, light blue with darker veins, unequally 4-parted; lobes roundish, two external and larger, of the two inner the smaller alternate with the two larger lobes of the calyx ; tube hairy inside. Stamens 2, spreading, at the base of the larger of the two inner lobes of the cox’olla; filaments violet, clavate; anthers innate, 2-celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary superior, compressed laterally, in a yellow annu- lar disk; cells 2, anticous and posticous; ovules several, axile; style filiform, declinate ; stigma capitate. [Obs. The accompanying diagram, which represents this structure, is a good example of the utility of con- trivances of the kind, in making which students should constantly exercise themselves. See SB, lxviii. and lxix.]