ON THE BRITISH DACTYLOID SAXIFRAGES. 287 



of the two is raateriJly different. This variety is dispersed widely 

 through the mountainous regions of the Centre and South of France, 

 and stretches through Spain into Portugal. I have seen a large num- 

 ber of French and a few Spanish specimens, and they all manifestly 

 belong to this variety, and show its characteristic narrow, firm, very 

 acute, usually entire leaves, those of the shoots often furnished with 

 strong buds in their axils ; and its sharp-pointed, lanceolate calyx- 

 lobes. An Icelaiulic specimen, gathered by Professor Babington, may 

 fairly take rank here. I have seen only one Irish specimen, gathered 

 on calcareous hills in Sligo by Dr. Maekay. In Britain this variety 

 appears to be most frequent amongst the calcareous hills of the North 

 of England. 



6. I have examined the original type-specimen of S. pedatlfida of 

 Eh rhart, given in his published 'Exsiccata,' No. 15, and consider that 

 it quite corresponds with some of the specimens which I have seen of 

 S.geranioides of Linnaeus. This is a plant quite confined to Spain and 

 the Pyrenees, in which the leaves possess a distinct petiole and several 

 compound lobes, confluent at the base, thus receding appreciably from 

 the dactyloid type of form in the direction of such a palmatifid leaf as 

 that of Geranium dmectnm, or colnmbbium. The plant sent by George 

 Don to Smith, which was figured by Smith as pedatlfida, I consider, 

 after examination of original specimens, to be materially different from 

 Ehrhart's plant, and to belong to 8. trifurcata, Schrad. Hort. Gott, 

 (1809) p. 13, t. 7, a plant with a truly dactyloid type of leaf, strong 

 stems, narrow, linear, acute, rigid, much-divaricated leaf-lobes, which 

 is frequently seen in gardens, and easily recognizable from all our 

 indigenous forms, some of which it otherwise resembles closely, by its 

 rigidity and viscidity. This is a native of the Asturias and other parts 

 of Spain, and comes very near the Pyrenean S. perdadactylis of La- 

 peyrouse, and is the same plant as S. cei-atophylla, Bot. Mag. 

 t. 1651 (1814), and is usually labelled by this latter name iu English 

 collections. 



The only conclusion to which I can come is, th;it, taking Britain as 

 a whole, we possess only a series of varieties, progressing from caspi- 

 tosn to Jij/pnoides, without any clearly-marked gap at any point between 

 the extremes ; that the line of progression is substantially straight, 

 very little, if at all, complicated, as it is, for instance, so strikingly 

 in Riihits, by cross relationships; that the series of sequence is as fol- 



