ceases ; and even these become difficult to seize when the 

 plant is dried. Possibly in its native place it was a tran- 

 sition from the ordinary form of Pol. caeruleum to that 

 singular state of the same species called P. caeruleum var. 

 nanum by Dr. Hooker, in his account of Captain Sabine's 

 Spitzbergen plants ; and when cultivated, it was reverting, 

 even in the first generation, towards the stock from which 

 it originally sprung. 



The meagre definitions of P. caeruleum in books are 

 wholly insufficient to point out that common species to 

 a person unacquainted with it. We have not, however, 

 attempted to improve them, because the whole genus and 

 order are in a miserable state of confusion ; and it is not 

 worth while beginning to reform them, without completing 

 the task, — for which we have neither leisure nor materials. 

 It appears to us that, exclusively of habit, the great distinc- 

 tion of P. caeruleum consists in the number and form of its 

 leaflets, and in the figure of the calyx, rather than in any 

 thing else. 



Our drawing was made in the Garden of the Horticul- 

 tural Society in August last year. It represents the leaves 

 with their leaflets broader and shorter than they usually are, 

 the specimen having been taken from among the outermost 

 of the radical leaves : the greater part of the foliage difl"ers 

 in no respect from that of Pol. caeruleum. 



A hardy biennial, propagated by seeds. 



J. L. 



