BRITISH SEA-THRIFTS AND SEA-LAVENDERS. 71 
two varieties in various soils, and also in growing them from 
seed, so as to ascertain more positively than I can at present the 
permanence of the character here described, and whether it can 
be transmitted to the offspring unchanged. 
Brief allusion may be made to the variety planifolia of Syme, 
which unfortunately is only based on a cultivated specimen from 
Mr. H. C. Watson’s garden, said to have been brought from the 
Scottish Highlands, and thus lacks the importance it might have 
had if it had been compared with the plant growing in its 
natural home. I have observed that plants of both A. maritima 
and A. pubescens, when cultivated, have a tendency to produce 
broader leaves which are also flatter, and consequently the veins 
are more readily seen. Moreover, if the basal portion of the 
early leaf, even of the coast or mountain plant, be examined, one 
is able to see the fibro-vascular strands varying from five to 
seven in number. These usually either run out, coalesce, or 
disappear at a greater or lesser distance from the base. If a 
section of the leaf with apparently one nerve only be made, one 
is able to observe seven fibro-vascular strands; but the type 
specimen of Mr. Watson’s cultivated in the Cambridge Botanic 
Garden, which is preserved in Babington’s Herbarium, shows 
that some of the leaves are three-nerved. Personally, I do not 
attach great importauce to the character derived from leaf- 
nervation ; but it may be found that the mountain plants which 
Prof. Babington named planifolia, from specimens collected by 
me on Little Culrannoch and Ben Lawers, in which the leaves 
are certainly broader than is usual, possess other marks of dis- 
tinction, but I at present know of none. I have a plant from 
the Norfolk mud-flats with even broader leaves, in which three 
nerves are more distinctly seen than in the Breadalbane speci- 
mens, and a similar plant from Wensleydale is contained in 
Babington’s Herbarium, and these are worthy further study. 
In the ‘ Conspectus Flore Europee,’ Nyman, following the 
arrangement adopted by Boissier in the ‘ Prodromus,’ puts the 
variety planifolia of Syme under Armeria pubescens, Link, in 
the Pleurotriche ; but I possess specimens agreeing with the leaf- 
characters of planifolia which have the fruit of the Holotriche 
and therefore belong to A. maritima : that is, if we give specific 
distinction to maritima and pubescens, each has a broad-leaved 
form planifolia. 
Nyman places Babington’s A. duriuscula under A. pubescens, 
