34 ON SENECIO SPATHUL.EFOLIUS, DC, AS A BRITISH PLANT. 



appeared most mauifest. But Wilson's specimen did not fiu*nish 

 the requisite materials for distinguishing the plants. If my late 

 fi'iend Mr. Borrer had succeeded in finding the locality mentioned 

 by Davies — and he searched carefully for it — the question would 

 doubtless have long since been set at rest. At length Mr. Griffith 

 found it, and sent me magnificent specimens of Davies's plant in 

 1880 ; he gathered them on a declivity overhanging the sea at 

 Yr-hen-borth, near Holyhead. One of these specimens is 25 inches 

 high, has 18 or 20 stem-leaves, and a corymb of 16 large flowers. 

 On placing Mr. Griffith's specimens by the side of the S. spathulcB- 

 folius of F. Schultz ('Herb. Norm.,' 690) no doubt of their identity 

 could, I think, remain. Also I have specimens of manifestly the 

 same plant (all named S. spathuUvJolius) from C. H. Schultz- 

 Bipontinus, and Wirtgen ('Herb. PI. Grit.,' 606). The plate also 

 in Reichenbach's ' Iconogr. Botan.' (126) clearly represents our 

 plant, but that in his ' Icones M. Germ.' (xvi., 87) is very 

 unsatisfactory. It is quite i3lain, from the description, that 

 Godron (' Fl. Fr.,' ii., 122) describes our plant, although he and 

 other authors include plants with much more lanceolate leaves, of 

 which I have several continental examples. Our smaller specimens 

 are almost exactly like those of both the Messrs. Schultz and the 

 plate in the ' Iconographia ' ; but the magnificent one sent by 

 Mr. Griffith is far more beautiful, and more completely justificatory 

 of the name than any plates or specimens accessible to me. 



It will be seen that in the ' Manual ' I have depended chiefly 

 upon the decidedly ovate- spathulate lower leaves, and the peculiar 

 sessile clasping stem-leaves, which are often nearly but broadly 

 linear, and are much widened at and near the clasping base. The 

 seedling plants form a beautiful rosette of large leaves which in 

 cultivation (if sheltered from the weather) continue through the 

 winter. In an exposed specimen before me they are dying away ; in 

 a sheltered one they are now (Dec.j as beautiful and fresh as ever. 

 These leaves are not represented in any of our illustrated works, 

 and hardly by any of the specimens in herbaria. On the living 

 young plants before me they are often 3 in. long by 2-| in. broad, 

 with short slightly-winged stalks only 1 in. long. They have a few 

 strong distant dentitions, which probably represent the " numerous 

 broad teeth " of Smith's description. My specimen from Mr. Wilson 

 has only an h-regular edge. But these teeth become very indistinct 

 on the succeeding leaves, or even quite disappear, or are repre- 

 sented by distant denticulations. Exactly the same is found to be 

 the case on continental specimens. But on our specimen from 

 Wirtgen (' PI. Grit.,' 606) some of the leaves might be described as 

 crenate, and others as dentate. It appears, therefore, that this 

 dentition is not a constant character. At the time of flowering, 

 which is often apparently not until the third year, these primary 

 leaves have disappeared, and large spathulate blunt leaves spring 

 from the stem, close to its base, and seem radical at first sight. They 

 are 4 in. long by 2 in. broad, and have a haft 1-2 in. long; the 

 hafts of the succeeding leaves become gradually broader as we 

 ascend the stem, until near the corymb they are very broadly 



