EUPHRASIA AND RHINANTHUS 237 



on Carices and half on Gramina. The result would indicate 

 what further cultures might be necessary. 



In referring to another dubious plant, Mr. Marshall speaks 

 of it as differing from E. foidaensis, among other ways, in 

 having flowers of a " beautiful violet-blue." But this is not 

 a difference either from E. foidaensis or E. scottica ; it is the 

 characteristic colour of the original E. foulensis, though I 

 have since learnt that this intense violet-blue is the pre- 

 dominating colour in the minimce in Shetland when growing 

 on the peat, whether the group is represented by one species 

 or more ; just as pale-flowered forms predominate on the 

 dry grassy slopes. But neither colour is exclusively confined 

 to either formation. 



In my last Shetland paper (p. 106) I wrote that I was 

 " strongly disposed to accept " Ostenfeld's conclusions regard- 

 ing these several plants. That remark was the result of 

 general impressions derived from many observations ; but 

 the further research and examination of specimens which 

 this note has entailed compel me to somewhat modify that 

 remark and to say that excluding opinions founded on 

 undefined " characteristic " specimens, etc., I think that the 

 bulk of the evidence at present adducible favours Dr. Osten- 

 feld's view, and that his arrangement can only be assailed 

 by actual proof obtained by means of the necessary cultural 

 experiments. I am not at all confident that the results 

 would confirm these views ; but the cultures are not suggested 

 with the object of confirming the views of one rather than 

 another, -but in the hope that we may learn from them some 

 facts which \\-\\\ enable us to estimate correctly the relative 

 positions of these plants. 



RJiinantkus. Mr. Marshall writes : " R. stenopJiyllus is 

 considered by Mr. Beeby to be an 'autumnal' variety of R. 

 minor" Well, really, in so characterising the plant, I was 

 practically quoting from Mr. Marshall's own article " On the 

 British Forms of RJiinantJius" in which he cites Dr. von 

 Sterneck as saying that R. stenopJiyllus " represents the typical 

 autumn form of R. minor" \ (Sterneck, see E. S. Marshall in 

 " Journ. of Bot.," 1903, p. 296). 



THAMES DITTON, July 1909. 



