CRITICAL PLANTS OF THE GREEK FLORA. 127 
by Velenovsky, or from the Greek localities cited by Formanek in Ver- 
handl. Brünn, 1896, p. 67 and 1897, p. 50, but several plants collected by 
Haussknecht in Western Greece in 1885 (specimens in hb. Kew) and 
distributed as T. Sibthorpii var. grandiflorus and var. subalpinus are certainly 
not forms of T. Sibthorpii, perhaps not even of T. Chaubardi. All that 
concerns the present argument is the identity of the Athos plant on which 
Grisebach's species rests with Sibthorp's specimen. That identity being 
firmly established cannot be shaken by possibly incorrect determinations of 
plants from other regions. 
It only remains to consider possible objections to this identification on the 
ground of discrepancies in the descriptions or superficial differences in the 
specimens. I will deal with those that occur to me. 
(1) Pichler's specimens were gathered in August and are in full bloom ; 
Sibthorp’s has almost ceased flowering. Consequently the lower leaves have 
fallen, only those of tbe upper part of the stem remaining, and the plant 
shows what Gelakovsky, before he knew Pichler’s specimens, described from 
Janka’s “gathered long after flowering with dried-up racemes and fallen 
bracts,” viz., “ in the leaf axils of the sterile stems as well as in the middle 
of the flowering ones there are formed characteristic short sterile branches 
with, at the end of the branch, compact bunches of leaves that are half as 
long as the supporting leaves but of the same Ee " [n Pichler’s specimens 
thas are not yet developed. 
(2) Another consequence of late gathering is that the corollas appear 
even smaller than when gathered by Pichler in full bloom. Bentham says 
“corolla vix calycem excedens "—Grisebach, “corolla calyce sesquilongior ” 
(his main reason for separating his species from Bentham's), but Velenovsky» 
“corolla vix exserta.” In fact calyx and corolla together are very small— 
half the size that those of 7. Chaubardi usually attain. As far as I can 
measure on herbarium specimens the calyx, including teeth, is only 3-4 mm. 
long and the corolla, though clearly “ exserta,” is less than “ sesquilongior.” 
(3) The leaves both in Sibthorp’s and Pichler’s plants are flat, “plana” as 
described by Grisebach, not “ margine revoluto” as stated by Velenovsky. 
Pichler’s measure 20 by 6 mm.; Sibthorp’s 15 by 5mm. The middle and 
upper stem-leaves are narrowly elliptic *, 7. e. tapering almost equally at 
both ends, but the lower leaves are obovate or obovato-spathulate. 
Grisebach calls them “ lineari-lanceolata versus basin attenuata" ; Velenovsky 
says “ovato-oblongis, oblongisve et lineari-oblongis," which will cover a 
multitude of sins, including those of Coumary’s specimen which are about 
* This botanical use of the word elliptic is of course mathematically incorrect. The 
figure bounded by two intersecting menisci is not an ellipse. Bentham describes these 
leaves as *oblongo-lanceolata " which is certainly incorrect. An oblong has not curved 
sides and a lance is broader towards the base than towards the point. 
wo PA AN 
