32 



ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



ALCHEMILLA VULGARIS, L. 



By G. Claridge Druce, M.A., F.L.S. 



The following paper is translated from the " Schedse ad 

 Floram Exsiccatam Austro-Hungaricam" by A. Kerner, I 884. 



Alchemilla Vulgaris, Linn., " Sp. PL," ed. i. p. 123 (1753). 



Linnaeus (" Sp. PI." ed. i.) distinguishes Alchemilla vulgaris, 

 with a var. B, A. alpina, with a subspecies A. hybrida, and lastly 

 A. pentaphyllea. There can be no question as to A. penta- 

 phyllea and A. alpina ; and later botanists have never raised 

 a doubt about them. But very different views have been 

 entertained since Linnaeus's time with respect to A. hybrida, 

 which he annexed as a subspecies to A. alpina, simply because 

 most authors neglected to follow Linnaeus' indications and 

 statements. He cites as synonymous with A. hybrida, on the 

 one hand A. alpina pub escens minor (Tournef. " Inst," p. 508), 

 and on the other Plukenet's "Hist," tab. 240, fig. 1. Plukenet 

 gives on the plate cited a figure of a small branch and a single 

 leaf of an Alchemilla from the royal garden at Paris. The 

 figure does not give us much information, scarcely more than 

 that the plant depicted must have been clothed with very 

 delicate hairs, and that the leaf was rather more deeply 

 divided than the leaf of the Alchemilla which the older 

 botanists named A. vulgaris. Tournefort refers in the place 

 cited above to Alchemilla minor hirsuta cinericia in Barrelier's 

 " Plantae per Galliam, Hispaniam, et Italiam observatae," p. 

 103, tab. 728 ; and it is undoubtedly on Barrelier's figure that 

 Linnaeus based the remark on A. hybrida which Linnaeus 

 introduced into the " Hortus Cliffortianus," and which will be 

 noticed again presently. The figure presents a plant with its 

 leaves so deeply divided that the incisions in most leaves 

 reach almost to the middle of the blade. The leaf in the 

 middle of the figure has the lobes toothed at the apex only, 

 and the lateral margins of the lobes are entire. According 

 to Barrelier, this Alchemilla, which he says has only ash-gray 

 hairs, is found " in editioribus Apeninorum pratis necnon in 

 monte Ventoso prope Avenionem." Linnaeus (" Hort. Cliff.," 



