Handbook of the British flora : a description of the flowering plants and ferns indigenous to, or naturalised in, the British Isles / [George Bentham].

George Bentham

Date:: 1912

Credit: Handbook of the British flora : a description of the flowering plants and ferns indigenous to, or naturalised in, the British Isles / [George Bentham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

111/672 page 27

$very rarely all the lobes are narrow, or some of the leaves oblong and undivided, but deeply toothed at the base. Flowers rather small, bright yellow. Pods usually very numerous, erect or slightly spreading, and crowded in a long dense raceme, each | to 3 inches long, terminated by an erect, usually pointed style, varying from J a line to 2 lines in length. Hedges, or pastures and waste places, common all over Europe, in Russian Asia and northern America. Frequent in Britain. FI. spring and summer. It varies much in the relative size of the lobes of the leaves, in the size of the flowers, in the length and thickness of the pod, in the length of the style, &c. A form with a very short and thick style is often considered as a different species, under the names of B. prcccox and B. intermedia, but it passes by every gradation into those which have a pointed style of 2 lines, and which have again been distinguished under the name of B. stricta. [Five forms or species are recognised by botanists ;— a. B. vulgans proper. Flowers large, petals twice as long as the sepals, pods in a dense raceme, erect, acute, three or more times as long as their pedicels. Common. b. B. arcuata, Reichb. Flowers large, as in a.; pods acute, large, spreading on very long pedicels, style slender. Rare; Armagh in Ireland, c. B. stricta, Andrz. Flowers smaller, pods dense erect in a narrow raceme, style slender. Uncommon. d. B. intermedia, Boreau. Leaves much cut, petals twice as long as the sepals, pods acute erect in a dense raceme much longer than their pedicels, style stouter. Cultivated fields. e. B. prcecox, Br. {American Cress). Leaves pinnatifid, segments narrow, flowers large, pods long distant obtuse, pedicels short stout, style very short and stout, seeds large. A garden escape ; an excellent salad.] IV. NASTURTIUM. WATERCRESS. Glabrous perennials or annuals, with the leaves often pinnate, or pinnately lobed, and small white or yellow flowers. Calyx rather loose. Stigma capitate, nearly sessile. Pod linear or oblong, and usually curved, or in some species short like a silicule, the valves very convex, with the midrib scarcely visible. Seeds more or less di.'^tinctly arranged in two rows in each cell, and not winged. Radicle accumbent. A small genus, but widely spread over the whole area of the family. It differs from Sisymbrium only in the position of the radicle in the embryo ; and the white-flowered species are only to be distinguished from Cardamine by the seeds forming two distinct rows in each cell of the pod. Po'l us\ially J an inch long or more. Flowers white , , . Flowers yellow Pod usually i inch long or less. Flowers yellow. Pod oblong, curved. Petals scarcely longer than the calyx Pod ovoid, straight Petals longer than the calyx 1. N. ofidcinale, Br. (fig. 62). Common W.—Stem sometimes very short and creeping, or floating in 1. JV. officinale. 2. N. sylvestre. 8. jy. palustre. 4. N. amphibiun^ much branched, shallow water ;$