T ini ee, ee re T 
SOME CRITICAL SPECIES OF ECHIUM. 435 
White-flowered Æ. vulgare occurs now and then in England, but 
Mr. Druce informs me that he knows no case of Æ. italicum being found 
except as a casual at Ware in Herts, where foreign poultry food is brought, 
and at Cothill in Berks. He has kindly allowed me to examine his specimens 
from both localities. Neither is true italicum. They are a very lax form 
of E. pyrenaicum, identical with Lapeyrouse’s authentic specimens of his 
E. pyramidale. 
Miller's fourth species is “ ECHIUM LUSITANICUM corollis stamine longioribus, 
L. Sp. 200 ; Æ. amplissimo folio, lusitanicum Tourn. Instag 
“It grows naturally in Portugal and Spain ; the lower leaves often are 
more than a foot long and two inches broad in the middle, gradually 
lessening to both ends, these are covered with soft hairs. The stalks grow 
two feet high ; the flowers are in short spikes coming from the side of the 
stalks; the petals of these are longer than the stamina.” 
This admirable description can apply to nothing but Echium Broteri, 
Sampaio ex Coutinho, as Boragineas de Portugal in Dol. Soc. Brot. xxi. 
p. 111 (1905), and in Cout. FI. Ports ps 499— E lusitanicum, L. (saltem 
herb.) 2 Æ. italicum, Brot. Fl. Lus. i. p. 290, and Hfg. et Lk. Fl. Port. i. 
p. 185, non L. The account of the leaves is quite conclusive, They are 
unlike those of any other species. 
Miller cannot possibly have meant Æ. plantagineum, to which for some 
inscrutable reason his Æ. lusitanicum is referred, along with Æ. amplissimo 
folio lusitanicum, Tourn., by Link on p. 186. De Candolle, Prodr. x. 
pp. 20 & 22, made the confusion worse by accepting this false identifica- 
tion for Miller's E. lusitanicum, but not for Tournefort’s synonym nor for 
E. lusitanicum, L. 
For an explanation of the often-repeated false statement that the Linnean 
herbarium contains no example of Æ. lusitanicum, and for a justification of 
the identification of E. lusitanicum, L., with Æ. Broteri, Samp., I must refer 
to my notes on the Echia of Linneus. The only g ground for doubting the 
identity of. Miller's, or indeed of Linneeus’s, lusitanicum with E. Broteri is 
the account which Linnzus and Miller both give of the relative length of 
stamens and corolla, which certainly is not true of Æ. Broteri, but it would 
also be untrue of any other Portuguese species to which Miller’s name could 
be supposed to apply. 
It looks as if Miller had simply copied Linnzeus’s statement without 
thought. I can only suppose that Linnzeus himself made a mistake. There 
is an analogous misdescription of the length of the corollas of Æ. italicum in 
Sp. Pl. ed. 1, where these are quite wrongly said to be * vix calycem 
B ues 
There exists no specimen of Æ. lusitanicum marked “ Herb. Miller," but 
there is a fine one from Chelsea Garden marked, though in pencil, by 
LINN. JOURN.— BOTANY, VOL. XLIV. 20 
