Mr. Anperson’s Description of a new British Rubus. 217 
. fresh discoveries almost daily made. The accession of new spe- 
cies to our catalogue, even since the days of Hudson, is indeed 
truly surprising to ourselves; how much more remarkable must it 
be to the foreign botanist to observe how large a share of the 
plants hitherto known inhabits so small a portion of the globe as 
the British isles! What a store of unknown treasures may other 
countries still possess, when our little spot, through careful exa- 
mination, is found to furnish so numerous a list of vegetable 
productions ! 
I have been slow in bringing forward the plant, of which I now 
beg leave to offer an account, to the Linnean Society; having 
waited till I had known and cultivated it for several years, and 
found it wild in most of the hilly regions of the kingdom ; nor do 
I even yet venture to pronounce it undoubtedly a permanent and 
unchangeable species. Contenting myself with describing the 
plant as it has been found and continued unaltered, I shall leave 
it for future investigators, who may think it worth their while to 
examine and decide whether the account I give of it remain 
steady or not. 
In many of the genera which comprehend numerous .species, 
an accurate observer will discover a closer alliance to exist be- 
_tween two or more of those species, than does between them and 
any others in the same family. These inferior divisions of the 
genus are for the most part the produce of late years, and have 
chiefly arisen out ofthe improvement or refinement of the science 
since the writings of Linné; being, in the greater number of in- 
stances, comprehended under one species by him. The Rubus 
corylifolius of Smith, &c. was not distinguished by the writers 
of those days from R. fruticosus, though it seems not to have. 
been overlooked by the accurate Ray about 100 years ago. -The 
plant described below is another brauch from the same stock, 
but 
