204 RUBUS ERYTHRINUS. 



It may be well to quote Koth's own description of his plant. It 

 is as follows : — 



" P. foliis inferioribus longissimis, lanceolatis, acuminatis, mem- 

 branaceis ; superioribus ovali-lanceolatis, coriaceis ; omnibus petio- 

 latis." — Tent. Flo. Germ. torn. i. p. 72. 



Leaving fruiting characters out of consideration, it would not be 

 easy to give briefly a better description of our sterile form than this. 

 My contention therefore is : — First, that the demand for fruit, 

 wherewith to prove that any plant is P. jiuitans Roth, must be 

 withdrawn, or the evidence whereon the demand is based be 

 divulged ; and secondly, that the name P. jiuitans Roth, must be 

 withheld from the freely -fruiting continental plant, until it is shown 

 to produce the characteristic submerged leaves described by Roth, 

 and which have been entirely wanting on the few specimens of 

 fruiting " P. jiuitans" seen by myself, and wanting, so far as I can 

 ascertain, on all specimens of fruiting "jiuitans" that have been 

 seen in this country. 



I am not prepared to deny that these two forms may possibly be 

 varieties of the same species, for I know too little of the fruiting 

 plant ; but if they are, it has yet to be shown conclusively, and 

 meanwhile I most confidently hold the contrary opinion myself. I 

 do not doubt that our P. jiuitans is a hybrid P. natans x lucens, 

 and at the same time should not be at all surprised were a ripe nut 

 occasionally found. Such is no evidence of non-hybridity, but merely 

 of the hybrid being occasionally fertilised by the pollen of some 

 other (probably one of the parent) forms. In these sterile hybrids 

 it appears to be the male element that is mostly at fault ; and 

 although its own pollen may be impotent, the pistil of the hybrid 

 may still be susceptible to the good pollen of an allied form, in 

 accordance with the law, acknowledged as general though not abso- 

 lute, that " the male organs of species-hybrids are functionally 

 weak to a higher degree than the female organs." 



In conclusion, I may state that by the " British plant " I allude 

 to the gatherings of Mr. Alfred Fryer in Hunts and Cambridgesnire, 

 and by myself in Surrey and "West Sussex. 



RUB US ERYTHRINUS Genev. 

 By T. R. Archer Briggs, F.L.S. 



In the ' Flora of Plymouth' there will be found appended to the 

 particulars under Rubus LindUimius Lees, at page 112, a reference 

 to another bramble, which Dr. Focke, in his valuable and interest- 

 ing ' Notes on English Rubi,' recently published in the ' Journal of 

 Botany' (vol. xxviii. p. 97-103, 129-135), asserts to be the one 

 given in Genevier's ' Essai Monographiqiie sur les Rubus du Bassin 

 de la Loire' as Rubus erythrinm. The paragraph respecting it which 

 I published in 1880 is as follows: — " "We have a bramble very 

 common about Plymouth, certainly of the RJuxmnifolii group, and allied 



