172 THE JOURNAL OF "BOTANY 



tion, simply transferring the plant to the genus Matricaria. Rouy, 

 Fl. de Fr. Viii. 257, is therefore right in quoting him as the authority. 

 Babington's later var. salina clearly refers to the same form, which is 

 common and easily recognizable: it may he doubted whether he 

 meant to establish a new variety. 



The essential feature of the variety is found in the close-set 

 leaf-divisions. The leaves are generally erect, not wide-spreading, 

 and so lie more or less close to the stem, and the same thing is true, 

 broadly speaking, of the flowering branches. As a rule the lobes are 

 short, but there are plants with elongated lobes which are best put 

 under this variety. The purple colour— fainter or deeper — is very 

 general, as are the decumbent steins, but plants occur with ascending 

 or even erect stems. The scarious margins of the phyllaries vary in 

 breadth and in tint, but are never nearly so broad or so black as those 

 of var. phceocephala. The plant appears to be commonly biennial, 

 but not infrequently perennial. 



This is the form which reaches furthest south. Tt extends all 

 down the western coasts of Europe and some way into the Medi- 

 terranean basin. 



3. Var. PHiEOCEPiTALA Rupprecht, Fibres Samojedorum Cisuralensium 

 in Beitr. zur Pflanzenk. Russ. Reich. 42 (1845). 

 Chrysanthemum grandijlorwm Hooker f. in Parry, A pp. Sec. Yov. 



398 (1825). 

 Tripleurospermwm Ilookeri Schultz Bipont. in Bonplandia, i. 151 



(1S53). 

 Rupprecht gives no formal diagnosis, but he devotes a whole page 

 to the plant from which it is clear that the distinguishing feature is 

 to be found in the very dark and generally broad margins to the 

 phyllaries. He says : " In pluribus speciminibus e 12 diversis locis 

 maris glacialis reportatis et alibi etiam a me examinatis nunquam 

 squamas anthodii margine scarioso pallescente, ut in communi planta 

 ruderali, sed fusco-nigricante et plerumque latissimo ornatas vidi." 

 He °"oes on to say that all the German forms of M. inodora (includ- 

 ing var. salina YVallr., which " insuper iaciniis setaceis, brevioribus, 

 valde confertis insignis est") have pale phyllaries, but acknowledges 

 the possibility of the occurrence of transitional forms. It is interest- 

 ing to contrast this statement with that of Fries (Summ. Veg. Scand. 

 18(3), who says that the essential character of " M . maritima L.," as 

 he understood it, lay " in squamarum margine pallido integerrimo, 

 qui in M. inodora semper lacero-, vulgo f usco-marginatus." Rupprecht 

 describes his plant as very variable in height and ramification, from 

 " 3-pedalis et ramosissima " down to " simplicissima et semipollicaris " 

 on the Island of Kolguev. He further says that it is a very common 

 plant from Lapland, at least as far as Ivotzebue Sound in Alaska, 

 but does not indicate how far south it goes. 



There are specimens in Herb. Brit. Mus. which seem referable to 

 this variety from Caithness (Marsha// 4086), Shetland (Beeby), and 

 East Inverness (A. Somerville). 



It is not suggested that every maritime form of 31. inodora can 

 be referred to one or other of these three varieties. There are many 



