BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS 119 



August has been identified by the Hon. N. C. Rothschild as Cerato- 

 phyllus mustelce, Wagner, a widely distributed but not very common 

 species in England. This, however, does not in the least prove that 

 the Orkney Vole has not a flea peculiar to itself. Another species 

 of flea, taken from a House-mouse (Mns musculus) captured in 

 Stromness, has been identified by the same naturalist as Ctenopsylla 

 musculi. ROBERT GODFREY, Edinburgh. 



BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS. 



Lamium purpureum, L., " var., deeipiens, Sander."- -My friend 

 Mr. W. Whitwell having sent me a specimen of a Lamium with the 

 query " L. purpureum, var. deeipiens, Sondr., or L. incisum ?"; caused 

 me to look up the descriptions and references to Sender's plant. 

 To my surprise I found the plant really belongs to incisum, as 

 Sender himself points out. The history of the plant seems to be 

 as follows : Sonder sent Koch a notice of this Lamium under the 

 names of purpurenm, /3 deeipiens ; and he published it in the 2nd 

 ed. of his "Synopsis Florae German, et Helvet.," ii. p. 749, 1844. 

 In 1851 Sonder, in his "Flora Hamburgensis," 327, gives these 

 references : 



Lamium incisum, Willd. 



L. confertum\ Fr. herb, norm., x., 16. 



L. westp/ia/icum Weihe ! x 



L. purpureum, f3 deeipiens, Sonder, in Koch, " Syn." and he refers 

 to "English Botany," t. 1933, as representing his plant. On this 

 plate of " E. B." is drawn a part of a corolla with a ring of hairs in it. 

 J. de C. Sowerby notes on the drawing, 2 " L. purpureum, observe the 

 hairs in the tube of corolla." On this Sir J. E. Smith adds, " I think 

 this should be engraved in the plate and marked ' L. purpureum.'' ' 

 No note of this appears in the third edition, so that the plate appar- 

 ently contradicts the text. Of the names Sonder gives, incisum 

 dates from 1800, confertum from 1843, an d " Summa Vegetabilium 

 Scand.," 1846, and westphalicum from 1822. So far back as 1843 

 Babington in his " Manual " notes a variety of purpureum with 

 more cut leaves, but gives it no name, Sender's name only appear- 

 ing in the last (gth) edition. In the " Exch. Club Report " for 

 1886, p. 157 (1887), he remarks "Where is this name (i.e. deeipiens) 

 to be found. I do not see it in Nyman. Is it my deeply-cut-leaved 

 form which is intended? I suppose so." 



Prahl (" Krit. Fl. Schl.-Holstein," p. 169, 1890) notes that Sonder 



1 Was not the name originally written giiestphalicum ? but I do not possess 

 the "Bot. Zeitung." 



2 Garry, in "Notes on the Drawings for English Botany," 143, Suppl. to 

 " J. of Botany," 1904. 



