ON THE BRITISH DACTTLOID SAXIFRAGES. 281 



in Britain with identical or similar ones from other parts of the world, 

 and to report the result of such comparison. A large number of 

 British forms have been separately named, and many of these names 

 have been dropped, but some are still retained. Have we, then, any 

 forms peculiar to Britain, and, if so, which are they? What is the 

 range beyond our bounds of the forms which Britain produces, and 

 where can be best drawn lines of demarcation to separate our types 

 into species or varieties? I propose to examine the Kew specimens 

 with these questions in mind, making use of the plates adopted in the 

 last edition of ' English Botany ' as standards of comparison. 



■1. Of the Scotch plant, described by Dr. Boswell Syme as cceapl- 

 toxa, I have seen only two specimens gathered on Ben Nevis by Mr. 

 Woods, and a series in the fruiting stage from the Clova Mountains, 

 from Dr. Barry. This form differs from all the others known in 

 Britain by its more compact growth, and by the barren shoots not 

 being elongated beyond the tufts of leaves at the base of the flower- 

 stems. The leaves are very slightly hairy, with three or rarely five 

 lobes, with the central lobe not more than l|^-2 lines long, and at least 

 half as broad as deep, with a bluntish point. The flowTring-stem is 

 not more than l|-2 inches long, with very few flowers (1-3 in the 

 specimens just referred to, and considerably larger than Mr. Sowerby 

 has drawn them), the fruit-calyx being semiglobose, and with blunt, 

 oblong-deltoid lobes. To me this plant appears to be cpiite identical 

 with the common Greenland, Labrador, and Scandinavian form of 

 crBspitosa, w'ith the plant given for typical caspitosa in the ' Herbarium 

 Normale' of Fries, and with the H;irtz caspitosa of Reich. Exsicc. 

 1887. In an Iceland specinnen, which olherw^ise quite agrees, the 

 petals are more than half an inch deep, and a quarter of an inch broad. 

 There are fine specimens in Sir W. C. Trevelyan's Eeroe collections, 

 marked " S. cfesp'dosa grwnlandica," by Horneman, more robust in 

 habit than the Ben-Nevis ones, with more hairy, more robust, deeper- 

 lobed leaves, and larger flowers. I have seen only one specimen in 

 fruit of the Welsh S. crespitosa, gathered on rocks above Cwm-ldwcl, 

 Caernarvonshire, in 1825, by Mr. Wilson, but judging the plant from 

 this and the original 'English Botany ' figure, I do not see any reason 

 why it should not be identified with the Ben-Nevis plant, and would 

 say the same for the Irish plant which hiis been referred to crespitosa, 

 of which then; is a specimen at Kew, gathered bv Mr. Wilson on 



