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XII. Remarks onfome Forjeign Species ofOrobanche. By James Edward 

 Smith, M.D. F.R.S. P.L.S. 



Read Oclober 3d, 1 797. 



THE Britiih fpecies of Orobanche have till lately been very ill 

 underftood, and it appears upon examination that the foreign 

 ones ftill require elucidation. The very firft fpecies in Linnasus, 

 Orobanche /avis, when put to the teft of botanical criticifm, is found 

 to be a non-entity; its hiftory having been fabricated, partly from 

 fynoriyms which belong to Orchis abortiva, and partly from thofe of 

 a real Orobanche, which however Linnaeus never knew, and which 

 does not anfwer to the name or character of his fuppofed /avis. 



The original authority for the Orobanche /avis is the firft edition 

 of Species Plantarum, p. 632, where it is taken up entirely from other 

 authors, who have defcribed it as being found near Montpellier, of 

 which place Linnaeus accordingly gives it as a native, nor does he 

 mention its being known in any other country. He had no fpeci- 

 men from thence in his collection, though he had then before him 

 a fpecimcn of a Siberian plant, figured in the F/ora Sibirica of 

 Gmelin, (who fent it to Linnaeus,) vol. iii. tab. 46. Jig. 2, as an Oro- 

 banche, which Linnaeus fufpected might be the fame with the 

 Montpellier fpecies, and therefore marked it /avis, with a mark of 

 interrogation, as it ftill remains in his herbarium. It anfwers in- 

 deed 



