68 MR. G. C. DRUCE ON THE 
(1837), and the S. Armeria, Engl. Bot. t. 226 (“ preter pubem 
non indicatam bene respondet”). This differs, he says, from 
A. maritima “ab ea tantum bracteis paulo acutioribus, scapis 
longioribus et presertim calyce ad costarum intervalla non piloso 
vix recedit. Si observationes ulteriores hunc characterem non 
constantem esse probarent tunc huic speciei potius quam nulli 
aliee A. pubescens conjungenda esset.” We shall gather from 
the description that Boissier was somewhat doubtful as to the 
specific distinction of A. maritima and A. pubescens. We must, 
however, bear in mind that this rather artificial character of the 
pubescence being limited to the ribs or being spread over the 
whole of the calyx-tube determines the limitations of the two 
groups, the Holotriche and the Pleurotriche, and that the 
European members of the genus which I have examined fall 
very clearly into one or other of the groups; and, so far as I am 
aware, no one has suggested that A. sibirica, A. filicaulis, or 
A. juncea, which belong to the Holotrich, are mere homologues 
of any species included in the Pleurotriche, however closely 
allied A. pubescens and A. maritima may be. 
In ‘The Student’s Flora,’ Sir J. D. Hooker has called our 
British plant A. vulgaris, Willd., and under it has placed as 
synonyms A. maritima, Willd., A. pubescens, Link, A. pubigera 
var. scotica, Boissier, A. duriuscula, Bab., and Statice Armeria, L.; 
but this latter synonym does not belong to the British plants, and, 
as the specimen in the Linnean Herbarium shows, is the Armeria 
elongata, Hoffm. Hooker’s description includes no reference to 
the spaces between the ribs being naked or hairy, and with the 
exception of the var. planifolia all varieties are ignored. In the 
third edition of ‘English Botany’ (vol. vii. p. 158) Syme says 
that the character derived from the calyx-tube being glabrous or 
hairy between the ribs is “inconstant and is utterly worthless as 
a means of separating the various forms, as has unfortunately 
been done by M. Boissier in... the ‘Prodromus.’” This very 
positive statement led me to examine our British forms as well 
as the European species; and it is with the desire to call the atten- 
tion of botanists to the subject that I have prepared this paper. 
It may be well to mention that Willkomm & Lange in their ‘ Pro- 
dromus Flora Hispanica,’ following Grenier & Godron in their 
‘Flore de France, have united under one species A. maritima 
aud A. pubescens; and Hartman, in his ‘ Handbok i Skandina- 
vieus Flora,’ has gone still further by putting A. maritima and 
