LINNEA.N SOCIETY OF LONDON. 33 



Prof. Viviani thus describes it in his ' Florae Libycae Specimen, 

 sive plantarum enumeratio, Cyrenaicam, Peutapolim, Magaae 

 Syrteos desertuin et regionem Tripolitanam incolentium ' — 

 " Oxalis libyca, iu pratis Cyrenaicae . . . Capsulam maturam n:on 

 vidi." He gives a full description as well as a plate (No. XIII.). 

 Tlie double form also occurs, as it does iu Malta and the Cape, &c. 



Of more modern writers, Moris, Fl. Sard. i. p. 363 (1837- 

 1843), speaks of it as growing in Sardinia ; and Munby mentions 

 it as growing iu Algeria in 1847. 



Prof. F. Parlatore (1848), in his ' Flora Italiana,' describes it 

 as growing at Castagno, near Naples, in the greater part of 

 Sicily, in Corsica and Malta, as well as in Zante, near Smj-rna, 

 in Egypt and Algeria. In his description he says : — " Stylis dis- 

 tinctis, fere horizontalibus, capsula . . . seminibus . . .," stating 

 that he has never seen the fruit. 



Mr. John Ball described this species in 1878 under the name 

 O. sericea (" Spicilegium Florae Maroccanae," Journ. Linn. Soc, 

 Bot. vol. xvi. p. 388), and alludes to the three supposed species — 

 O. sericea., L. fil. ; O. cernua, Thunb. ; and O. compressa, Jacq. — 

 as being only one, inasmuch as these three are but the short- 

 styled, mid-styled, and long-styled forms. Since he records the 

 plant himself as O. sericea, this implies that it is the short-styled. 

 form which grows near the city of Tangier. It often occurs 

 there also as double. Mr. Ball quotes the distribution given 

 above, and adds : — " in iusulis Canariensibus *, Madeira ... in 

 agro Tingitano et alibi in Africa boreali." 



The last to allude to it, that I am aware of, are Aschersou and 

 Schweiiif urth. In the list of plants of " Middle North Africa " 

 (' Kufra,' p. 513, 1881), the former describes it as growing in 

 Cyrenaica, and regards it as a remarkable fact in geographical 

 botany that this species should have two sources ; for he appears 

 to regard it as indigenous t. In their 'Illustration de la Flore 

 d'Egypte ' (1889), these joint authors simply record it as 

 naturalized at Cairo and Esneh. 



* It does not appear to have reached the Canaries before the year 1840 ; for 

 it is not mentioned by Webb and Berthelot in their ' Histoire Naturelle des 

 lies Canaries.' According to Lowe only the double form is found at Madeira 

 (' Manual of the Flora of Madeira, &c.' p. 100). The source of it in these 

 islands was probably direct from the Cape of Good Hope itself, and quite in- 

 dependently of the Maltese origin. 



In De Candolle's ' Prodromus,' vol. i. p. 696, Oxalis cermia is described 

 " stylis brevissimis," which seems to imply that this author also only knew of 

 the short styled form. 



Mr. N. E. Brown informs me that, contrary to Mr. Ball's views given above, 

 " 0. cernua, 0. sericea, and 0. compressa are three distinct species, and not 

 sexual forms of one species, and each is heterostyled." 



t " Das Vorkommen dieser Cappflanze, welche seit mehrern Decennien auf 

 Culturboden des Mittelmeergebietes sich vielfach eingebiirgert hat (ich sah sie 

 in Sardinien, Unter- und selbst Oberagypten zu Esneh II), an ofFenbar urspriing- 

 lichen Fundorten unsers Gebietes ist eiue pflanzengeograpbisch sehr merk- 

 wiirdige Thatsache, da derartige Uebereinstimmungen zwischen Nord- und 

 Siidafrika selteu sind." 



LINX. SOC. PROCEEDINGS. — SESSION 1890-91. d 



