158 MK. C. C. BABINGTON ON THE 



seem all to belong to one species, and to be so little diiFerent, and so 

 gradually dissimilar, as to be scarce worthy of separate names, even 

 in the light of varieties only" (Phytol. iii. 805). As will shortly 

 be seen, I now think that he was nearly, if not quite correct in those 

 remarks. Opinions formed after the examination of only a few very 

 imperfect specimens, and therefore little more than guesses, are 

 never either conclusive or satisfactory. Mr. Watson's own view, 

 which was fonnded upon scores of specimens examined when alive, 

 is, of course, nearly conclusive against that formerly held by me. 

 Of the three Azorean plants then noticed (Bot. Gaz. /. c. 63 & 64), 

 two certainly do seem to belong to one species : the third (sent by 

 Mr. T. C. Hunt from St. Michael's) looks far more like a form of 

 the true JF. capreolata ; it is too incomplete for satisfactory deter- 

 mination. The two first-mentioned specimens I now refer to the 

 F. muralis (Sond.) with some confidence; and if Mr. Hunt's broader- 

 leaved plant is correctly joined to them, as was believed by Mr. 

 Watson, we shall have arrived at the same result for the Azores 

 that Mr. Lowe (Fl. Mad. 13) has done for Madeira, namely, that 

 all the so-called F. capreolata of those islands is really the F. mu- 

 ralis of Sonder. 



After reading Mr. Lowe's most valuable remarks (Z. c.),l was 

 led to re-examine my British specimens, in the hope of finding 

 amongst them the F. muralis ^ — suspecting that my former F. 

 agraria, which, in deference to the views of Dr. Walker- Arnott 

 and Mr. Watson, I had ceased to regard as a species, might be 

 rightly so named. Although the result is a little difierent from 

 that expectation, all my supposed F, agraria proving to belong to 

 the F. confma (Jord.), nevertheless I find amongst plants received 

 from Mr. Leighton examples of the F. muralis. This is the more 

 interesting from Mr. Jordan's remark, made in the year 1848, 

 concerning F. muralis. He said, " specimina hujus in Gallia lecta 

 nondum vidi ; " and as it is not noticed in the third edition of 

 Boreau's valuable ' Mora of Central France,' nor in Lloyd's Flora 

 of the West of that country, we may perhaps safely conclude that 

 it has not even now been detected there. I possess an authentic 

 specimen of F. muralis from Mr. Sonder himself, and another 

 from the Island of Madeira, by which to determine the plant of 

 Lowe. They accord very satisfactorily with each other and with 

 the descriptions of the species as given by Sonder, Koch, A. Jordan, 

 and Lowe. 



These plants, together with F. capreolata (F. speciosa, Jord.), 

 F.pallidijlora (Jord.), and F. Borcei (Jord.), combined with a few 



