‚342 Dr. Suıru’s Account of several Plants, 
8. Lycunts alpina, 
glabra, petalis bifidis, floribus corymbosis, foliis lineari-lanceolatis. 
— L. alpina. Linn. Sp. Pl. 626. Fl. Dan. t. 65. Willd. Sp. Pl. 
v. 9. 809. 
. Silene lapponica alpina, facie viscarie. Linn. Fl. Lapp. n. 185. 
On rocks near the summit of Clova in Angusshire, but very 
rare; first observed by Mr. Don in 1795. 
This is a very pretty species, found in Switzerland, as well as 
on the Lapland mountains, so that we cannot wonder at its being 
a native of Scotland also, though never noticed before. Itre- 
sembles Lychnis Viscaria, but is smaller and not viscid. 
Some strange confusion has crept into the descriptions of this 
plant. Linnzus in his Flora Lapponica makes it a Silene, saying the 
styles are three., In the Species Plantarum it is properly referred 
to Lychnis, without mention of any anomaly in the number of the 
styles, which therefore must be understood to be five; but in the 
Systema Vegetabilium they are said to be four, and the petals are 
there described as destitute of a crown. Now in the original 
manuscript of Linnzus's Lapland Tour, where he first describes 
the plant in question, the styles are asserted to be five, and the 
petals to have a crown, formed of two teeth upon each petal, their 
border moreover being cloven half way down. Haller, in Act. 
Helvet. v. 6. 13. n. 46, says the petals are “ plaited at their. "dis im 
with tumours but without auricles,” and that “the styles are five." 
These two last accounts, taken from nature, may safely be relied 
on, and they agree with what I am able to discover in dried spe- 
cimens, where I find the petals as distinetly crowned as in any | 
Lychnis or Silene whatever. Willdenow is reprehensible for 
copying the erroneous specific character from the Systema Vege- 
tabilium as if it were taken not from Linneus but from Oeder 
in 
