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REVISION OF THE BEITISH WILLOWS. 



Salixfragilis. "Wimmer 



349 



a synonym, adds, in his notes, that the plant he has described is the 

 same as Hoffmann has figured, and that, though no adult leaves 

 are depicted, yet it is evidently a broad-leaved form, which he 

 considers to be the type of the species (i. e. of S. fragilis). 



Andersson dismisses S. decipiens as only a slight modification 

 of S.fragilis, analogous to the var. vitellina of S. alba, and pro- 

 duced, like that, by the annual lopping of the tree. The short 

 description he gives is similar to that given by Koch. 



A careful study of the figures and descriptions will, I think, 



suggest that the plant attributed by Andersson Ac. to S. deci- 



fi 



Hoffmann's species, but a modification only of 



and distinguished by the bark of the twigs being testaceous in 

 colour, and the lower leaves more or less obtuse. No allusion is 

 Biade, it will be noticed, to the remarkable " polish " of the twigs, 

 nor to the inflorescence. 



figured 



) 



has been continuously known under that name, though the more 

 recent writers have, in reducing it to the rank of a variety, 

 omitted to notice some of its essential peculiarities, and have in 

 fact apparently not observed them. 



As a matter of fact, Hoffmann's decipiens seems to be little 

 known and scarcely understood by continental salicologists. 

 Andersson saw in H. C. "Watson's herbarium * specimens pub- 

 lished by Leefe t, and made no remark upon them, except that 

 there were at Upsala two trees, planted by Linne, altogether like 

 Leefe's plant, and that the form wasvery rare in Sweden. On this 

 note Leefe and Ward make the following comment (Jo urn. of Bot. 

 viii. p. 305): " certainly decipiens, E. B." Possibly the specimen 

 (which, though in bad condition, seems to be quite the same as 



fi 



ipiens) in the British-Museum 





Norm.)," may be from one of these trees. Another specimen 



* I have a Willow from Surrey, labelled by Watson " Salix undulata, fide 



Andersson," which, though it is a leaf -specimen only, I have no doubt is 

 & decipiens. 



t No. 50 of original fasciculus. Leefe says, " buds black in spring "; but his 



specimens have pale buds. He also says, " In specimens received from Professor 



^°ch the 8cal <* of the $> are round and very hairy ; the leaves of the tf are 



loader and less glaucous and reticulated beneath than in my specimens ; those 



the $ *gtt* exactly." So apparently Koch knew the plant. 



"B*. JQTJHN.— BOTANY, VOL. XXVII. 2 B 























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