Mr. J. Miers on the genus Lycium. 9 



idem decurreiitibus, hinc tuboque pilosulis, parte libera om- 

 nino glabris; stylo capillaceo, vix exserto, cum ovario arti- 

 culato : bacca pisiformi subglobosa. — Per totam Europam 

 Australem^ prsesertim in Gra^cia abundat, iinde pro scpibus 

 antiquissime introductum, forsan in Africam Borealem spon- 

 taneum, Insulasque Madeira et Canarienses. — v. s. in herb. 

 Hook. (Madeira) Lemann, no. 552 {i/i sepibus Portus Sancti 

 abundans) *. 



M. Dunal rejects the Linnsean name, merely because the plant 

 is not common throughout all Europe; but on the same ground, 

 the name he has substituted is equally inappropriate, since it is 

 acknowledged by himself, that although it occurs in Southern 

 Europe and the Mediterranean Islands, it has originally been 

 introduced there. If we must reject the Linnsean name, for 

 which I can see no reason, it would be infinitely better to adapt 

 a synonym nearly as old, in preference to a new and unsuitable 

 term, in which case Miller's name, by common rule, would claim 

 precedence over that of M. Dunal. 



A considerable difference is observable in this and the pre- 

 ceding plant, both in habit and in the structure of its flowers. 

 It is a species well known, and frequently found in gardens in 

 England. The barren spines measure 3 to 5 lines, but the gem- 

 miferous spines are much longer : the leaves are usually from 

 9 to 15 lines long, 1^ to 3 lines broad, and attenuated into a 

 slender petiole; the pedicel is 2 lines in length, the calyx is 

 f line long ; the tube of the corolla is a little curved, 5 lines 

 long, \~ line diameter in the middle, 2^ lines in the mouth, the 

 rounded glabrous segments being 1^ line in diameter. A spe- 

 cimen in Sir Wm. Hooker's herbarium from one of the Canary 

 Islands (Palma, BourgeaUy no. 924), affords a good example of 

 what has been before said respecting the variation of habit and 

 difference in the size and shape of the leaves sometimes found in 

 the same individual. One branchlet bears some short, stout, 

 bare, axillary spines, little more than 3 lines in length ; but 

 other axils that are without spines, produce a single large fleshy 

 leaf from 2 to 2^ inches long, and ~ an inch broad, somewhat 

 obtuse at the apex, and attenuated into a petiolar base ; another 

 straight branch, 18 inches long, is beset with numerous straight 

 bare spines, 1 to 1|^ inch long, accompanied by separate alter- 

 nate leaves, 3 to 6 lines in length, 1 to 3 lines broad, and with- 

 out flowers ; a third, imd more fragmentary portion, has a single 

 spine, 2f inches long, bearing three small bare spines, each 3 

 lines in length, and a single spineless nodose axil, producing five 

 fasciculated leaves, about an inch long, and 3 lines broad, with 



* A drawing with details of this plant is shown {loc. cit.), plate 64 B. 



