fusion still exists among the species ; confusion which 

 can only be removed by a critical examination of the 

 synonymy of each, and by good figures of all the species 

 and their principal varieties. 



We suspect that this observation is particularly ap- 

 plicable to the subject of the accompanying plate, of 

 which, according to Russian and other Botanists, the 

 varieties are very numerous ; but under which we are 

 rather disposed to believe two at least, if not more, distinct 

 species are confounded. 



S. chamaedrifolia originated with Ammann, from whom 

 Linnaeus adopted it. The description of the former of 

 these two writers is so good, that it leaves no doubt upon 

 our minds that he intended the species now represented ; 

 indeed his account will not apply to any other plant : he 

 confines its range to Davuria ; and he does not advert to 

 any supposed tendency in it to vary. 



Gmelin, however, in his Flora Sibirica, declares it to be 

 extremely variable ; but the account he gives of the varieties 

 makes it more than probable that he is talking of different 

 species. This may possibly have predisposed Pallas to 

 adopt the same opinion in his Flora Rossica, in which, of 

 all the forms he has figured, the single leaf alone, at the 

 bottom of the left side of the plate, seems to us to repre- 

 sent exactly the species intended by Ammann. According 

 to Pallas, it first appears on the east of the Ural Moun- 

 tains, skirting the banks of the Tura, the Ljala, the Cocva, 

 the Sosva, and other Alpine streams ; becomes abundant 

 about the Jenisei, and fills all the woods and thickets of 

 the Transbaicaline districts, and especially of Davuria. 

 But we believe this, the Davurian plant, is diflferent from 

 the others of which Pallas speaks. 



This confusion having been once introduced, a new 

 name was given to the true S. chamasdrifolia by Scopoli, 

 who, not perceiving its identity with the plant of Ammann, 

 published it under the name of S. ulmifolia, — an error 

 which has been adopted by all succeeding Botanists. 

 "We now correct this mistake, cancelling the species called 

 ulmifolia, as a mere repetition of S. chamaedrifolia. 



The Spiraea flexuosa of Dr. Fischer is in all probability 

 the same species as S. duwKxdrifolia ; at least, when that 



