182 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



1905 vol. of this Journal, p. 201. Ley's name is now restored for 

 the British plant, and B. cuchloos separated from it and transferred 

 to M. Gravet's Belgian plant, referred to on p. 47 of my Handbook. 

 But a further suggestion is now made that both are probably of 

 hybrid origin: the British as " plicatus x Sprengelii,'' and the 

 Belgian as " ? suberectus x Sjirengelii." Of the latter I have seen 

 only dried specimens, which in this instance are not sufficient for 

 distinction, as Dr. Focke points out. Mr. Ley took Dr. Focke and 

 me in 1894 to see his plant on the Beacon Hill, near Trelleck, 

 Monmouthshire, where it "occupies a large area of woodland (some 

 three square miles)," and his article describing the plant (Journ, 

 Bot. 1896, 159, 160) contains the following remarks bearing on 

 the question of a possible hybrid origin: "On the adjoining heath 

 occurs what seems to be a form of the same bramble with leaves 

 much more deeply cut and plicate, and with the glands of 

 the panicle-rachis fewer and subsessile. A hybrid also occurs 

 on the heath between the last-named plant and (probably) 

 B. Sprengelii W." Some of the specimens in my herbarium re- 

 present this hybrid, and others varying examples of B. orthoclados 

 — all tending to conlarm Dr. Focke's present view. In our future 

 lists, therefore, it may perhaps be sufficient to give Ley's plant as 

 a hybrid — Sprengelii x 1 plicatus. I have seen specimens of very 

 similar plants from several of our western counties, from Cheshire 

 to W. Gloucester. The B. orthocladus Boul. Eonc. Vosg. 127 

 (1869) is now " suspected " by Dr. Focke to be B. foliosus x 

 macropliyllus ; but apparently the same plant had in 1861 been 

 named B. anoplostachys by Mueller, its discoverer, and so could 

 have no right to Boulay's name in 1869 (Journ. Bot. 1905, 201). 



Next to B. orthoclados in Bicbi Europai comes "i?. riibricolor 

 Blox. in Syme Engl. Bot. ed. 3, iii. p. 180, teste J. E. Griffith," 

 without further description than the following : " Frutices 

 humiles, inter se variabiles, sed omnes B. nitido similes et crebre 

 vel parcius glandulosi. Flores rosei. V. v. sp. Bei Bethesda in 

 N. Wales." But I believe it to be impossible to separate Bloxam's 

 plant (now for many years shut out of our list) from the very 

 aggregate B. lentiginosus Lees, which is common and variable in 

 the Bethesda neighbourhood. 



(To be concluded) 



PROTECTION OF THE CAPE FLORA. 



The Selborne Magazine for April contains an interesting 

 account of the steps taken for the protection of the Cape Flora, 

 from the pen of Mr. A. Handel Hamer, Vice-President of the 

 Mountain Club of South Africa. The gradual destruction of the 

 more attractive plants of Table Mountain and other habitats near 

 centres of population had proceeded for some time. At last 

 " public opinion grew strong on the matter, and in 1905 the Cape 

 Government passed an Act under which regulations could be 

 ssued forbidding the sale of certain species, and instituting close- 



