ceases; and even these become difficult to seize when the 
plant is dried. Possibly in its native place it was a tran- 
sition from the ordinary form of Pol. ceeruleum to that 
singular state of the same species called P. ceruleum var. 
nanum by Dr. Hooker, in his account of Captain Sabine's 
Spitzbergen plants; and when cultivated, it was reverting, 
even in the first generation, towards the stock from which 
it originally sprung. 
The meagre definitions of P. ceruleum in books are 
wholly insufficient to point out that common species to 
a person unacquainted with it. We have not, however, 
attempted to improve them, because the whole genus and 
order are in a miserable state of confusion; and it is not 
worth while beginning to reform them, without completing 
the task,—for which we have neither leisure nor materials. 
It appears to us that, exclusively of habit, the great distinc- 
tion of P. ceruleum consists in the number and form of its 
leaflets, and in the figure of the calyx, rather than in any 
thing else. 
Our drawing was made in the Garden of the Horticul- 
tural Society in August last year. It represents the leaves 
with their leaflets broader and shorter than they usually are, 
the specimen having been taken from among the outermost 
of the radical leaves: the greater part of the foliage differs 
in no respect from that of Pol. ceruleum. 
A hardy biennial, propagated by seeds. 
J. E. 
