SOME CRITICAL SPECIES OF ECHIUM, 435 
Sibthorp * from Sieily because the indumentum is different, being even more 
tubercular, but less hispid ; this difference, however, may be due to cultiva- 
tion; the calyces and bracts also look somewhat different. 
Unfortunately the specimen in question only shows the upper part of 
a plant with a panicle about 30 em. long by 10 em. broad, the branches in the 
lower axils, whose flowers are still in bud, measuring 5-6 em. The arrange- 
ment of the flowers almost recalls that of X. rosulatum, Lange, the cincinni 
being few-flowered and scattered and very obscurely scorpoid or hardly 
furled. The indumentum of the stem is dimorphous, but that of the leaves 
is peculiar and similar to cultivated examples of rosulatum. There is prac- 
tically none of the soft pubescence which is present in so many species ; all 
the hairs are bristles, larger or smaller, and the whole leaf very scabrous, not 
hispid, with regularly disposed sete as in plantagineum, but with numerous 
minute tubercles scattered over both surfaces, some quite bald, some bearing 
inconspicuous bristly hairs. At intervals among these are larger tubercles 
occasionally crowned by stronger thick bristles, but in most cases these have 
been worn off or never developed, so that most of the pearly pustules, which 
are very conspicuous, look naked. The uppermost stem-leaves are lanceolate 
and pass insensibly into the lower bracts (which alone are visible) of the 
same shape. These are exceptionally long and foliaceous, equalling or 
exceeding the lower flowers. The calyx-segments are very long and 
acuminate, the corollas about 2 em. long; rather less oblique than is usual 
in Æ. pustulatum and not so wide at the throat as in plantagineum, nor have 
they the peculiar thin texture of that species. They are pubescent all over, 
not glabrous with hairs along the nerves and ciliate as in plantagineum. 
They have dried blue with a paler pinkish throat. The style is hairy in its 
whole length and bifid to a depth of not more than 2mm. The stamens are 
sub-exsert, 7. e., rather longer than the lower but shorter than the upper lobes 
of the corolla. Without dissection, which is not permissible, one cannot be 
sure whether the filaments are quite glabrous. I suspect that this garden 
plant originated from one of the Kehia of the Spanish peninsula, but it is 
difficult to say from which. 
In the old herbaria at the British Museum I have found sundry specimens 
more or less like that of Linnzus; all I think garden forms, in which 
cultivation has reduced the hairy coat, but not the pustules, so that the leaves 
sometimes look as though they were studded with pearls. Some of these 
show a peculiar lax inflorescence and diffuse habit, which may point to 
I. rosulatum, Lange, as their origin. Nor can we be sure that some may 
not be natural garden hybrids. None have the true radical tuft of leaves 
preserved :— 
* See my note on the Echia of Sibthorp's herbarium, supra, p. 386. 
