ON THE BRITISH DACTYLOID SAXIFRAGES. 283 



one " culta," and two " spontanea ex agro Norimbergensi," corre- 

 spond with it fairly. All these names are quoted by Koch under S. 

 ceBspitosa ; and I feel, therefore, no hesitation in considering the Irish 

 plant as identical with the German one, and as representing what 

 Koch intends by the name " S. caspitosa, var. laxa," and in sinking 

 the name hirta (which does not apply well to the Irish plant) in favour 

 of the earlier one of Sternbergii, which takes date from 1809. To my 

 eyes the plants from Brandon Mountain, Mncgillicuddy's Reeks, and 

 Galtymore, look precisely the same (although Smith, in 'English Flora,' 

 refers the former to c^spitosa and the two latter to hirta'), and incurvi- 

 folia of ' English Botany ' to be the ordinary wild condition of the same 

 form. This is not precisely the same as D. Don's hirta, from the 

 west of Scotland, which is a less robust form, with smaller, more 

 hairy, less deeply-cut leaves, with more acute lobes ; neither is it the 

 hirta of Haworth, who characterized a totally different plant under 

 that name eight years before Smith. It is the S. hibernica of the 

 monograph of Haworth (p. 29), who regarded it as a distinct species 

 peculiar to Ireland, and defines six varieties. The nearest Welsh and 

 Scotch specimens I have seen have the leaves a little more acute, and 

 thus agree better with the ' English Botany ' decipicns. The Norwegian 

 specimen given for Cfsspitosa, var. laxa, in the 'Herbarium Normale' 

 of Fries matches the Irish hirta very well, and so do Arctic American 

 (Greenland and Disco island) specimens from Dr. Sutherland and Dr. 

 Lyall. Of the British forms, this and the last are the only two that 

 correspond with Scandinavian and North American examples. 



3. The ' English Botany ' figure of S. decipiens agrees very well with 

 the plant given under that name in Reichenbach's ' Exsiccata,' n. 1261, 

 from the Hartz, and with the plant figured by Sternberg (t. 23) as 

 decipiens, making allowance for the latter being drawn from a culti- 

 vated specimen. This comes very near the wild specimens of the last 

 variety, agreeing with it quite in general habit, but differing in the 

 leaf-lobes and calyx-lobes being always decidedly acute. As already 

 stated, the specimens sent by Mertcns as decipiens correspond better 

 with our last variety. The only British specimens which I have seen 

 that unmistakably rank here are from Caernarvonshire, rocks near 

 Llyn-y-Cwm, gathered by Mr. Roberts, of Bangor; and Sleeve Neesh 

 near Tralee, gathered by Mr. Woods. Cultivated specimens from 

 Snowdon, from Mr. Wdson, marked by himself "palmata " (Smith's 



