the Botanical Magazine, under the name of Antholyza me* 

 rianella, vid. pi. 441. but the real Antholyza merianella of 

 Linnveus, or Gladiolus merianellus of Thunberg, is a 

 different plant, having pubefcent leaves, fewer in number, 

 nearly fheathing the whole Item, flowers differently formed, with 

 larger and rounder fegments, ftigmas entire and complicate; and 

 is in fact a Gladiolus nearly allied to Gladiolus hirfutus by 

 leaf, and to Gladiolus Watfonius by the tubular throat. 



As there is a fpecimen of our plant preferved in Sir Joseph 

 Banks's Herbarium from Kew-Garden, under the name of 

 Antholyza merianella^ it is not improbable that this cir- 

 cumftance led Mr. Curtis into an error, which is no dif- 

 paragement to his judgment ; for fuch is the confufion pre- 

 vailing with refpecl to thefe plants, that the mod learned 

 Botanifts acknowledge their inability to determine many of 

 them. This confufion has partly ari fen from the. difficulty of 

 the fubject. itfelf, owing to the great number of new fpecies 

 that have been introduced, which were unknown to LinnjEUS 

 or defcribed by him from dried fpecimens only, and to the 

 pronenefs of thefe plants to vary ; but more efpecially from 

 the careleffnefs of authors, quoting falfe fynonyms, in the firft 

 inftance, and heaping blunder upon blunder by copying each 

 other's errors, without fuffkiently fcrutinizing the descriptions. 

 The fear of adding to this confufion has frequently deterred us 

 from prefenting our readers with more of this beautiful tribe, 

 and but for the affiftance of Mr. Gawler, who with infinite 

 labour and (kill, has been able to make out all Lin nous's 

 and even Thun berg's fpecies, we fhould have been tempted 

 to have paffed them by in defpair. 



The defcription of Thunberg above quoted is excellent 

 when applied to our plant, but how he came to miftake it for 

 Linnjeus's Antholyza meriana is not for us to unravel. 

 Jaco_uin has given a good figure of one of the varieties, but 

 has erroneoufly defcribed it as having a three-valved fpathe ; 

 had he known that it had been already defcribed by Burman, 

 he would of courfe have adopted his name of aletroides, which 

 poflefling the right of priority, as well as being more defcrip- 

 tive, we confider it a mere act of juftice to reftore. 



Our figure was taken this Summer from a plant which 

 Flowered at Meffrs. Grimwood and Wykes's, Kenfington. 

 It is of much later introdu&ion than the date affigned to 

 Antholyza merianella in Hort. Kew. which refted upon the 

 fuppofition of its being the fame with Watson 1 a humilis of 

 Miller, which it is not. The fpecimen above mentioned in 

 Sir Joseph Banks's Herbarium bears the date of 177^* 

 which may perhaps be confidered as nearly that of its firft 

 introduction into this country. 



