136 MR. KOGti ON FOUB VARIETIES 



writes 8-10 pairs. In my variety the pairs are 14-16, with an 

 odd one ; whilst the bidentations on their tips, in any of them, are 

 scarcely, if at all, perceptible. This, however, is a character likely 

 to be variable in itself, and to assume in some specimens the ap- 

 pearance of mere emargination. 



In addition to the greater length of the leaflets in my new 

 plant, their under-sides are less hoary and villous than those of 

 the hypoglottis. But I must remark, that the chief and best 

 distinction between these two species is, if constant, the solitary 

 seed in each cell of the bilocular pod of the A, hypoglottis^ and the 

 three seeds in each of that of the A. purpureus. 



In examining, a day or two ago, with Mr. Kippist, under a lens 

 and small microscope, an immature pod taken from the lowest 

 flower from one of the heads of each variety or species, eight or 

 nine ovules were plainly visible in each dissected pod ; consequently, 

 if the character be a good one, all the ovules except two, — that is, 

 one in each cell in the pod of A. hypoglottis, and all, save six, in 

 the pod of the new plant, if A. purpureus, — must, in ripening, con- 

 tinue immature or abortive. So I must wait until next summer to 

 decide the accuracy of this distinction, when I hope to procure some 

 mature pods from my variety, or new species. But I shall have no 

 difficulty in obtaining the pods of A. hypoglottis, as this pretty 

 plant is common on the sand-links near Hartlepool and Seaton. 



Looking then to the more elongated form of the immature pod 

 of my new specimens, and compared with the subcordiform and 

 compressed shape of that of A. hypoglottis, — see fig. (a) of Plate 

 12, and figs, (a) and (h) of Plate 14, in the ' Astragalogia,' and which 

 distinctions are apparent in the dissected young pods contained in 

 papers B 3 and B 4 ; — I am more inclined to affirm that my recent 

 plant is rather to be accounted as a variety of A. purpureus, 

 without the bidentate tips of the leaflets, — the seeds having, most 

 likely, been imported with ballast from Toulon or Marseilles to 

 Hartlepool, — than as a variety of A. hypoglottis. And this 

 opinion seems to be in some degree confirmed by the greater 

 number of flowers in each larger head, the much longer peduncles, 

 the greater number of pairs of leaflets, their more lanceolate form, 

 their less hoariness and villousness, than those which respectively 

 occur in A. hypoglottis*. 



* After my paper was read, a gentleman present at the meeting stated that 

 Baxter had figured, in his ' British Phsenogamous Botany,' a variety of the 

 Plantago major, which he thought was the same as mine. On looking, sub- 

 fcequeutly, at vol. iii. plate 207, I found that he has figured at No. 7, a small 



