THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[SECOND SERIES.] 

 No. 101. MAY 1856. 



XXXII. — On the British Species 0/ Arctium. 

 By Charles C. Babington, M.A., F.R.S. &c.* 



In a former paper (Ann. Nat. Hist. Ser. 1. iv. 253) I endea- 

 voured to show that there were two well-marked species of 

 Arctium inhabiting Britain, and then expressed an opinion that 

 neither of them accorded well with the plants figured in ' English 

 Botany.^ The names applied to them in that paper were A. 

 Lappa and A. Bardana, used in the belief that my plants corre- 

 sponded with those so called by Linnseus and Willdenow. Since 

 that period my attention has at intervals been directed to the 

 genus, and specimens have been often seen that did not well 

 accord with either of those species. A few years since I was 

 favoured by my friend M. J. Lange of Copenhagen with a spe- 

 cimen of a plant called by him A. intermedium^ and which he 

 believes to be distinct from the described species. On the sup- 

 position that this accorded with a plant observed in Britain, and 

 that it was nearly allied to what I had formerly named A. Bar- 

 dana, it is placed in the 3rd edition of my ' Manual ' as A. minus 

 /3. intermedium, and the A. Bardana of Smith is incorrectly re- 

 ferred to it. A careful re-examination of the plants has led me 

 to the conclusion that throughout the whole of these researches 

 I have been in error, and that the following remarks present a 

 more correct view of the subject. 



We appear to possess five well-marked species of Arctium in 

 this country, namely A. tomentosum, A. majus, A. intermedium, 

 A. minus, and A. pubens, the characters of which I now purpose 

 endeavouring to point out. But before describing the plants it 



* Read to the Edinburgh Botanical Society, March 13th, 1856. 

 Ann, §• Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. xvii. 24 



