Mr. C. C. Babington on Lenaria scpium. 409 



be a new species of Linaiia, and upon which he conferred the 

 name of L, sepium. 



In the second edition of my 'Manual of British Botany' 

 (p. 232), the opinion was stated that the plant is " scarcely more 

 than a variety of L. italica/' and in the third edition of the same 

 book I ventured to consider it and the L. italica of the Manual 

 as hybrids between L. vulgaris and L. repens. 



In consequence probably of the latter remark, I was favoured 

 by Dr. Allman, in June 1852, with a large packet of living 

 specimens and roots of the disputed plant. A careful examina- 

 tion of these, and a comparision of them with living specimens 

 of L. repens, led me greatly to doubt the correctness of the 

 supposition that it was a variety of L. repens; and Dr. Allman 

 justly states in a letter to me that the " total absence of 

 L. vulga7'is from the neighbourhood where the plant in question 

 abounds must render hybridization impossible.^^ In another 

 letter he remarks, " I only know of one spot in the neighbour- 

 hood of Bandon where L. vulgaris grows apparently wild, and 

 there very sparingly. It may possibly have escaped from a 

 neighbouring garden. This spot is more than a mile in a direct 

 line from the nearest patch with which I am acquainted of L. 

 sepium, and three or four miles from other localities where the 

 L. sepium is abundant/^ Also, "in the same hedge with the 

 apparently wild plants of Z/. vulgaris just mentioned, and removed 

 perhaps from these about ICO yards, grows L. repens j and yet 

 not a trace of L. sepium have I found to grow within a mile of 

 them.'' These remarks show the great improbability, if indeed 

 I might not say impossibility, of the L. sepium being a hybrid. 

 Two of the roots received from Ireland have grown well and 

 flowered profusely in the Cambridge Botanical Garden, and have 

 thus afforded an excellent opportunity for studying the plant. 



As I now believe the plant to be a distinct species, I have 

 drawn up the following character and description of it, and in 

 doing so have followed the type of the descriptions of the allied 

 species to be found in the valuable ' Monographie des Antir*^ 

 rhinees ' of Chavannes. 



Linaria sepium (AUm.) ; radice repente, caulibus erectis glabris, foliis 

 lineari-lanceolatis acutis sparsis, floribus racemosis, sepalis ovatis 

 acutis glabris calcave brevioribus, seminibus tuberculato-scabria 

 trialatis. 



L. sepium, Allman in Proceed. R. Irish Acad. (1843) p. 404. 



Caules e rhizomate repeute incrassato saepeque tuberculis instructo 

 prodentes, plurimi, simplices vel rarmilo^i, leeves, basi lignescentes 

 (cortice fuscescente), bipedales ; ramuli alternes, crectiusculi. Folia 

 poUicaria vel sesquipollicaria, lineari-lanceolata, utrinque attenuata. 



