Vesicaria
(from vesica, a bladder or blister; alluding to the inflated pods). Bladder Pod or Seed. ORD. Cruciferoe. A genus embracing about a score species of mostly hardy, branched, annual or perennial herbs, found in temperate North America, South Europe, Syria, Persia, and the Andes. Flowers yellow or purple, variable in form, large, rarely small; sepals equal at base, or the lateral ones sub-saccate; racemes ebracteate. Pods globose or inflated. Leaves entire, sinuate, or pinnatifid. The species here described are well adapted for ornamenting rockwork. They are of the simplest culture. The annuals may be increased by seeds, and the perennials by divisions. V. arctica (Arctic). fl. yellow, many in dense racemes. August. l. oblanceolate and linear-spathulate, of a beautiful silvery colour, clustered. h. 1ft. North America, 1828. Perennial. (B. M. 2882.) V. gracilis (slender). fl. yellow; petals spreading, obcordate, nearly sessile; racemes elongated. June. l. lanceolate, entire or slightly angular, nearly naked; lower ones sub-spathulate, petiolate. Stems many, filiform, rigid, slightly scabrid. h. 6in. Texas, 1834. Annual. (B. M. 3533.) V. graeca (Greek). fl., petals nearly twice as long as the calyx, the lamina yellow, elliptic. Summer. l. of the sterile branches thick, oblong-spathulate, slightly acute; those of the fertile stems sessile, erect, acute, the margins ciliated and often denticulate. Greece. Perennial. SYN. Alyssum utriculatum. V. grandiflora (large-flowered).* fl. yellow, large; petals rounded, spreading, very shortly clawed; racemes elongated, many-flowered. July. l. oblong; radical ones sub-lyrately pinnatifid, petiolate; cauline ones sinuate-toothed, sessile. Stem erect, flexuous. h. 1ft. Texas, 1835. A stellately-pubescent annual. (B. M. 3464; S. B. F. G. ser. ii. 401.) V. utriculata (bladder-podded).* fl. yellow, closely resembling the Wallflower; calyx bisaccate at base. April to June. l. oblong, quite entire, smooth; lower ones ciliated, somewhat spathulate. h. 1ft. South Europe, 1730. Perennial. See Fig. 167. (S. F. G. 627.)