01a Agrimonia Parvif1

AGRIMONIA PARVIF1,01(A Soland.

Aromatic and glandulose, commonly 3 j °-4y,° tall (i to over 6°) virgate-branched above, the ascending branches simple or loosely few-branched and forming elongated strict racemes. Stem stout, becoming 4".-6" thick below, papillose-roughened and densely hirsute with spreading brownish hair which conceals a fine surface pubescence and passes into a close hoary pubescence in the racemes ; in immature plants the hairiness is very dense and sub appressed, the young branches and racemes densely canescent pilose. Leaves bright green, numerous, mostly spreading, but often the lower leaves are deflexed, those above spreading, the upper ones rapidly diminished in size and ascending or erect, mostly oblong to narrowly-oblong in general outline, 4'-12' long, wide; leaflets commonly f I-17, or sometimes as many as twenty-three on the narrowed lowermost leaves, strongly-nerved and rugose, minutely petiolulate or sessile, spreading, the distal pair obliquely contiguous to the odd one and often decurrent on the leafstalk, the lower pairs frequently somewhat alternate, lanceolate, sometimes narrowly lanceolate, tapering to either end, acutely ser rate, 1'-41F long, 4"-14" wide, a common size being 2W X 8"-9", above obscurely hispidulous to glabrous, usually finely scabrous near the edges, the margins minutely ciliolate, paler below and thinly to softly pubescent, with longer appressed or spreading often brown ish hairs on the nerves and sprinkled with minute shining glan dules. Leafstalk villous, tomentose-pubescent on the upper side. Interposed leaflets crowded, mostly 4-5 pairs except in the lowest interspaces, often subopposite, mostly narrowly oblong and sessile by a broad base, the main pair sharply serrate to below the mid dle, separated by only a minute pair from the succeeding pair of leaflets, the others gradually smaller, all but the most minute sharply-toothed. Stipules, except the reduced lower ones, broadly cordate-amplexicaule, sometimes broad, the outer mar gin serrate or cut-serrate, deeply cleft at the tip into a narrow at tenuate lobe sometimes 1' long, which stands either abruptly erect against the stem or is bent sharply backward. Racemes

glandulose beneath the pubescence, mostly erect or sharply as cending, 1o'-21' long, many-flowered. Flowers 3"-5" broad, rather pale yellow with thin narrow petals ; anthers small with broad connective. Bracts very small, pilose-pubescent, the lobes filiform ; bracteoles very small, trifid. Flower-buds very small, somewhat obovoid and subtruncate, slightly mamillate, somewhat glandulose, sepals ovate-oblong, acute. Fruit small, nodding on slightly spreading pedicels, I"-2" wide and long, minutely glandu lose; the slender stipe-like base slightly strigose, the body subglo bose, short-turbinate or hemispheric below the bristles, the disk much elevated ; bristles medial on the fruit, the outer short and re flexed, the innermost erect, equalling or exceeding the broad sub truncate calycular process. Base of the stem bulbous-thickened in the form of an oblong tuber sometimes nearly 1' in diameter. Roots not tuberous-thickened.

Comes into flower from the middle to the end of July, continu ing to bloom till about the middle of September.

I tun nNca.Iw in

naLuiany a plain ua iuw uany giuunus anu 111 such situations reaches its fullest development, commonly growing in scattered communities about the borders of weedy thickets. Oc casionally it establishes itself in dry soil and becomes much re duced and quite distinct in appearance from the normal plant, though clearly nothing more than a dry ground state of the spe cies. Extreme examples of this form are only I 4° tall and sim ple, terminating in a raceme 6'-8' long ; the leaves are much crowded, often reflexed and not larger than 3'-5' long by wide ; the small leaflets number only 3-5 pairs and are mostly el liptic and finely and sharply serrate, the subleaflets reduced in size and number and obovate, the stipules very small ; on small sterile plants, the small leaflets may be oval and rather bluntly serrate and sometimes number only 2-3 pairs. (Plate 283, fig. 7.)