508 MR. C. BUCKNALL : A REVISION 
lanceolatis decurrentibus, calyce patente tubo corollie breviore, the red- 
flowered Comfrey.” Smith in * English Botany,’ vol. xii. in the notes accom- 
panying t. 817, remarks :—“ Dr. Sibthorp has made a new species of the red 
or purple-flowered variety, distinguishing it by a shorter and spreading calyx, 
which we and several of our friends have failed to discover." As will be 
seen by the list of synonyms and specimens, Sibthorp’s name has often 
been given, both in Britain and on the Continent, not only to the purple- 
flowered 5. officinale, but also to S. peregrinum and its hybrids, and even to 
S. asperum, Lepech., but no one has been able to recognise the “spreading 
calyx” described by him. <A possible explanation of this is that in sterile 
plants, which are of frequent occurrence, the calyx is wide open after the 
corolla has fallen, and exposes the abortive nutlets, and Sibthorp may have 
founded his S. patens on plants in this condition. 
The specimen named S. officinale in Linneeus’s herbarium is, according to 
C. Hartmann in Annotat. de plant. Scand. herb. Linn. (K. Sv. Vet.-Ak. 
Handl. 1849-51), p. 50, not that species, but S. orientale, Fr. (S. uplandicum, 
Nym.). Having carefully examined the plant in question, I cannot accept 
this determination for the following reasons:—the stem shows fragments 
of a broad wing, and the leaves on a small branch are completely decurrent : 
the upper leaves are narrowly lanceolate and erect, and the calyx is closely 
hispid like that of S. officinale. Moreover, I have found no evidence that 
either S. peregrinum or S. asperum, which were included in Fries's S. orientale, 
were cultivated in Western Europe until the beginning of the last century, 
and it is unlikely that Linnzeus had ever seen these species. In my opinion, 
therefore, the plant is ©. oficinale. As a plant at Kew from Besser’s 
herbarium named S. asperrimum is evidently not that species, the names of 
S. peregrinum. and S. Donii have been suggested for it; but the stem is 
narrowly winged, the upper leaves are erect, and the inflorescenec is densely 
hairy as in 05, officinale, The same names are suggested for another ol 
Besser’s plants labelled “S. caucasicum,” and in another hand “sed calyx 
profundum fissus,? 
This is nearly the same as the last but not so densely 
hairy, and I have little doubt but that both these specimens must be referred 
to S. officinale. | 
A plant in the De Candolle herbarium labelled * An echinatum Ledeb. ? 
Ex Reut.” is like S. officinale except that it is subglabrous and scabrid 
with tubercles like S. uliginosum. A. De Candolle has written on the 
sheet “ 8. lanceolatum, DC. MN. Mon реге Pavait rapporté a S. offieinal: 
lanceolatum {8 Weinm. dont il faisait une espèce en le reunissant à la fig. de 
Don. Brit. flow. gard. t. 294, mais cette fig. représente des appendices de la 
corolle tout différents.  L'échantillon actuel parait s'entrer dans le S. officinale 
y mais les anthéres sont égales aux appendices.” — Don's figure 294 repre- 
sents S. caucasicum, so that the reference to the corolla-seales may be 
disregarded, and the stamens in De Candolle’s specimen, which are visible in 
