SHORT NOTES 23 



SHOKT NOTES. 



Ertthti."ea scillotdes Chaubard. In the 1918 Report of the 

 Botanical Exchange Chib (p. 290, " July," 1919) Dr. Druce treats 

 Mr. Arnett's Pembrokeshire plant as a variety of the Azores species 

 and names it porfensis, which is the name of the Portuguese form. 

 He says that Malinvaud " held the plants to be distinct species," and 

 that Le Jolis "also considered it to be a distinct species." Dr. Druce 

 evidently has not read Le JoHs' paper of 1896 — for references see my 

 article in Journ. Bot. 1918, 321 — where that author goes very fully 

 into the matter and regards the two as identical ; nor did he in any of 

 his previous works express the opinion implied in Dr. Druce's remarks. 

 Dr. Druce's observations about " Malinvaud " are also erroneous : I 

 omitted to refer to him because he was only writing a notice, in which 

 he gives no opinion of his own, of Le Jolis' paper : moreover, the 

 remark quoted as from Malinvaud does not exist. I note that Dr. 

 Druce makes no reference to my article ; when his attention was 

 called to this at the meeting of the Linnean Society on Nov. 6, he 

 explained that the B. E. C. 'Report — which, although dated " July 

 1919 " did not reach the members of the Club until late in October — 

 was already in type when my paper appeared in November, 1918 ; 

 certain coincidences of expression must therefore be regarded as 

 accidental. The only tangible difference between the Azorean and the 

 European plant seems to be that the former is "always white- 

 flowered." When investigating the matter I started by supposing 

 that the plants might be different not only in the Azores but in 

 Portugal and North France. In the Azores the species is stated to 

 be extremely variable, and Le Jolis says the same of the French plant. 

 My examination showed that the habit of the species in the Azores 

 sometimes more resembles that of an ordinary ErythrcBa than it does 

 in Europe, but I could find no way of separating them. I have a 

 distinct impression that I have read somewhere a statement by one 

 who had gathered the plant in the Azores that the flowers were as 

 often pink as white, but at present I cannot find it. Since the history 

 of the Linnean name is unsatisfactory, it may be well, at any rate 

 for the present, to call the British plant JE. porfensis Brot. — 



A. J. WiLMOTT. 



Ojs- Collecting Roses. I should like to impress upon collectors 

 of Roses the extreme importance of collecting well-developed fruit^ 

 not necessarily fully ripe which has become pulpy, but that which 

 has fully reddened, though if the sepals have already fallen it is not 

 necessary to wait for the reddening stage provided the fruit is fully 

 grown. I would rather have a specimen to name gathered in late 

 October, or even November, than in June. I have just been looking 

 through a collection of about sixteen specimens from Ireland by 

 Mr. Stelfox, in which he at first sent me flowering specimens, 

 or young fruit, promising me ripe fruit later, I named these ^ pro- 

 visionally and kept them by me till the fruiting specimens arrived ; 

 these showed that I was wrong in my provisional names in three 

 cases, and I was able to give names to three others I had given 

 up in the flowering stage. In fact, I could have named every one 



