Five Eriti/b Species o/Orobanche. i ~o 



ginibus agrorum juxta Centaur eas fcabiofam et nigrum, Scab'wfam 

 arvenfem, &c— Gunton, Kelling, Sheringham, Catton, Coftefey, 

 in glareofis. 



This is no uncommon plant : it has hitherto been conflantlv 

 confounded with the preceding; but though they are fimilar in 

 general appearance, the difference between them is very difcerniblc 

 on a clofer infpeclion ; and they who acknowledge the force of that 

 fentiment of Linnxus, that " minimis partibus per totum nature 

 campum certitudo omnis innititur, quas qui fugit pariter naturam 

 fugit*," will be ready to allow this to be a diftinel fpecies. There is 

 reafon to fnppofe it may have been noticed by Ray very early, 

 though not particularly diftinguifhed by him ; for in his Hifioria 

 Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nafcentium, printed in 1660, his fjrft 

 work in Botany, he fpeaks of having found the O.Jlore majore of 

 J. B. "in a field of barley, on the right hand of the way between 

 Cambridge and Grantchefter, alfo in a corn -field at Cherry hinton," 

 places in which this is very likely to be found, as it grows amon^ 



herbaceous plants, and never on the roots of broom or furze : He 



adds, " alfo at Gamlingay, growing at the roots of broom plenti- 

 fully :" here he undoubtedly means our O. major, for that is Mill to 

 be found there in abundance. In his Catalogus Plantarum Angl'uc, 

 publi{hed ten years afterwards, he notices them thus : " ad radices 

 geniftae, interdum et inter fegetes." 



3. Orobanche minor. 



Caule fimpliciffimo. Corollis quadridJis. Staminibus inferne 

 pilofis. Stigmate retufo. Stylo fuperne glabro. 



* Philofophia Botanico, p. 222. under the 280th aphorifm : Fruttificaticnis partes fiepiui 

 cenftantiflimas differentias fubminiftrant. 



A a 2 O. major , 



