Sepals 5. Petals 5, usually jagged or denticulate at the point. Stamens 3--5, rarely 10. Styles mostly 3. Pod ovoid, 1-celled, many-seeded, opening at the top by 6 teeth. Seeds rough, flattened on the back, attached by the inner face.--Annuals or biennials, with several (white) flowers in an umbel, borne on a long terminal peduncle. (Name composed of ὅλος, _all_, and ὀστέον, _bone_, by antiphrasis, these plants being soft and tender.) H. UMBELLÀTUM, L. Leaves oblong; peduncle and upper part of the stem glandular-pubescent; pedicels reflexed after flowering.--Hills around Lancaster, Penn., _Prof. Porter_, and Morris Co., N. J., _C. F. Austin_. (Nat. from Eu.) 9. CERÁSTIUM, L. MOUSE-EAR CHICKWEED. Sepals 5, rarely 4. Petals as many, 2-lobed or cleft, rarely entire. Stamens twice as many, or fewer. Styles equal in number to the sepals and opposite them. Pod 1-celled, usually elongated, membranaceous, opening at the apex by twice as many teeth as there were styles, many-seeded. Seeds rough.--Flowers white, in terminal cymes. Our species have the petals 2-cleft or obcordate, the parts of the flower always in fives, and the exserted pods more or less curved. (Name from κέρας, _a horn_, alluding to the shape of the pod in many species.) C. VISCÒSUM, L. (MOUSE-EAR CHICKWEED.) _Annual_, hairy and rather clammy, nearly erect (4--9´ high); _leaves ovate or obovate to oblong-spatulate_; bracts herbaceous; _flowers small_ in close clusters at first, _pedicels even in fruit not longer than the acute sepals; petals shorter than the calyx_. (C. vulgatum, _L. Herb._, and _Man._ The names of this and the next were transposed in the Linnæan herbarium, which has caused much confusion. They are here applied as originally by Linnæus, and by many recent botanists. Others substitute for this the later name, C. glomeràtum, _Thuill._)--Grassy places, eastward and southward; not common. May--July.--Stamens often 5. (Nat. from Eu.) C. VULGÀTUM, L. (LARGER M.) Perennial; stems clammy-hairy, spreading (6--15´ long); _leaves oblong_; upper bracts scarious-margined; _flowers larger_ (sepals 2--3´´ long), at first clustered, the fruiting _pedicels_ longer, the earlier ones mostly much _longer than the obtuse sepals_; petals equalling the calyx. (C. viscosum, _L. Herb._, and _Man._ C. triviàle, _Link._)--Fields and copses; common, perhaps indigenous. May--July. (Nat. from Eu.) 1. C. nùtans, Raf. Annual, very clammy-pubescent; stems erect, slender, grooved, diffusely branched (6--20´ high); cyme loose and open, _many-flowered; leaves oblong-lanceolate_, acute, the lowest spatulate; peduncles mostly elongated; petals longer than the calyx; _pods nodding on the stalks, curved upward, thrice the length of the calyx_.--Moist places, Vt. to Minn., and southward. May--July.