270 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



placed under the first of the four varieties — vulgare, elongatum, atro- 

 purpureum, and Tackiroi — into which Mr. Praeger divides the species. 



Under S. Telephiwm L., 8. purpurewm Link and* 8. Fabaria 

 Koch are placed as sub-species. " When" characteristic, [these] are 

 easily distinguished, but there are many plants which one hesitates 

 to refer to one form or to the other ; whether this is due to crossing 

 or not I cannot offer an opinion. The ' wild ' British plants I have 

 grown have all been Fabaria, but I do not attempt to go into the 

 question of _ the distribution in the British Isles of the two forms. 

 The confusion which seems fated to hang over the Sedums is here 

 especially marked, as, for instance, when one receives from one of the 

 ablest of field botanists roots of the Japanese S. alboroseum as a 

 native Telephium from woods in Sussex " (p. 85). Equally remark- 

 able was the sending to Kew of the female plant of the Himalayan 

 8. fastigiatum from Hexham-on-Tvne, "where it grows in a school 

 garden, and is supposed to have been found wild in Cornwall or 

 Scotland!" (p. 55). 



Of S. anglicum Huds., which, first described from English speci- 

 mens, is a species of Western Europe ranging from Norway to Spain, 

 a new variety — var. minus — is described from "a very pretty and dis- 

 tinct little plant, obtained in the garden of Mr. E. A. Bowles at 

 Waltham Cross " (p. 182). 



8. album L. is regarded by Mr. Praeger as " seldom if ever in- 

 digenous in Britain." H. F. Parsons, in an interesting MS. note 

 (1875) in the British collection of the National Herbarium, regards 

 it as native on limestone rocks on the Mendips, and this view is main- 

 tained by P. P. Murray (Fl. Somerset, 144) as to the localities 

 mentioned by Parsons, though elsewhere in the country he considers 

 it introduced. The variety micranthum {S. micranthum Bast.) has 

 been much misunderstood : "The occurrence of true micranthum in 

 the British isles appears to rest on Sowerby's Sussex record (Engl. 

 Bot. ed. 3, iv. 53) : I have not seen specimens. The diagnoses given 

 by Babington (Man. Brit. Bot.) and [J. 1).] Hooker (Students^ Fl.) 

 do not appear to represent micranthum Bast. at all. The Cork plant, 

 as sent to me by several botanists, is only brevifolium" (p. 185). 

 The reference throughout the paper to ed. 3 of English Bot a in/ as by 

 Sowerby can hardly be considered aee urate ; the title of the book was 

 preserved, but the third edition, as Mr. Praeger knows, was entirely the 

 work of Syme ; the "Sussex record" is his, and does not appear in 

 So werby's^ original: the same applies to the note (p. 289) that 

 8. Cepcea is " naturalised in Buckinghamshire." On the Cork speci- 

 mens labelled *S'. micranthum from Isaac Carroll's herbarium in the 

 British collection is a note in Carroll's hand: "var. turgidum foliis 

 crassis of 8. album. The leaves are much shorter and broader than 

 in the type; petals also shorter . . . Sir W. J. Hooker in litt 

 July, 184 . . ." 



Under 8. acre L., 8. Drucei Graebner, in Bot. Exch. Club Report 

 for 1912, 160, is thus disposed of: "This is the common British 

 & acre, and I have elsewhere (Journ. Bot. 65 [55], 212) recorded 

 the observations according to which I fail to distinguish between it 

 and Continental forms of the same species" (p. 248). We were not 

 previously aware that, "like the Houseleek and some other Sedums. it 

 is often planted on houses as a preventive of fire." 



