398 MR. C. C. LACAITA ON THE 
notice that its resemblance is not to the montanum, but to the erectum of 
Sibthorp’s herbarium. 
What may be the exact relationship of the specimen labelled montanum to 
the sundry Greek forms united by Halacsy, Consp. Fl. Gr. ii. p. 334, under 
O. echioides, as understood by him, and to O. viride, is a matter for investi- 
gation. The habitat alleged in Fl. Gr. Prodr.—* in insula Creta et in 
Peloponneso ”—cannot be correct. No plant resembling the specimen is 
known from Crete, and none that I have been able to see from the Pelo- 
ponnesus agrees with it, nor does Columna's Apennine plant occur in either 
region, although it is very closely related, not indeed to the montanum of 
the herbarium but to O. erectum. 
In these circumstances the name Onosma montanum must be abandoned as 
being *a permanent source of confusion or error," in the language of the 
International Rules, Art. 51, case 4. [t must be rejected altogether. 
No. 423. O. echioides, synonymized by Smith with O. echioides Sp. Pl., is 
well known not to be any form of the Linnean echioides, but it is 
obviously the haplotrichous O. frutescens Lam., as appears from the 
figure in Fl. Gr. 172 and from Sibthorp's own specimen. 
No. 424. O. erectum. This well-known Greek species is not so well figured 
as usual in Fl. Gr. t. 173. The colour is too green, the plant always 
being very grey in nature, and the drawing of the flowering cyme 
may have misled Smith into the diagnosis “ floribus erectis," which is 
misleading. The position of the flowers in reality is not more erect 
than in allied species, such as echioides var. Columne, but as usual 
there is a gradual change of position from the nodding bud to the 
erect fruit, as the scorpioid inflorescence unwinds. The rest of the 
characters given in the * Prodromus? are admirable : “ foliis linearibus, 
pilis basi stellatis intertextis, caulibus simplicibus erectis? : these 
distinguish it perfectly from the herbarium specimen of montanum, in 
which the leaves are oblong and obtuse, the stellate hairs of one 
tubercle do not overlap those of its neighbours, and the stems are 
diffuse or ascending, but they would not provide differentiæ from the 
Sicilian form of echtoides, O. canescens Presl. In the * Flora Orientalis? 
Boissier has ignored these characters, identifying erectum and mon- 
tanum. I do not think that he ever saw Sibthorp’s specimens of 
either. 
Onosma erectum comprises two varieties or subspecies—one with glabrous 
corollas, peculiar to the mountains of Crete; the other with strongly pub- 
escent flowers, var. pubifforum Hal., plentiful on Hymettus and other hills in 
Attica ; also occurring, according to Haläesy, in Kuboea and Achaia. Crete 
alone is quoted as the habitat both in the Prodr. and in Fl. Gr. ii. p. 62, but 
it is obvious from inspection of Sibthorp’s specimens that none of them come 
from that island. There are two shects in existence, both containing several 
