EXTRACTS FROM REPORT OF BOTANICAL EXCHANGE CLUB, 1887. 57 



of a name. It is not described in any work which I possess, and 

 does not occur in the numerous forms which have been sent me 

 from France, Switzerland, and Savoy. I hope that you will permit 

 me to dedicate it to you in giving it the name of Mentha Nicholson- 

 iana Str. I add here the description which I have made of it : — 

 ^Mentha Nicholsoniana. Stem tomentose, erect, branching. Leaves 

 with the veins disposed in a network, tomentose and greyish below, 

 green above, and covered with very short hairs, which give them a 

 mealy appearance ; all distinctly petiolate, oval-oblong, much nar- 

 rowed at their apex, and subcordate at their base ; those of the 

 j)rimary axis deeply dentate, with unequal apiculate teeth at unequal 

 distances ; those of the branches less deeply dentate, with equal 

 teeth, more or less remote. Flowering spikes cylindrical, pretty 

 short, obtuse, and interrupted at their base. Bracts very long, 

 setaceous, and plumose. Calyx hairy, with long subulate teeth. 

 Corolla small. Stamens included. This species has certain re- 

 lations with Mentha Ekensteiniana Opiz. (Naturalientausch, p. 301, 

 No. 131).'"— L'Abbe Ch. A. Strail. 



M. puhescens ^iWdi. Hort. Croydon, 1887.— A. Bennett. "The 

 majority of the older botanists mention but a very small number of 

 mints, and their descriptions are incomplete. Only a few characters 

 were indicated. Hence it is impossible to say whether or not 

 Willdenow had your plant in view when he gave the name, for his 

 description equally applies to several other very dissimilar plants. 

 In Malinvaud's ' Menthae Exsiccatae,' and in the three editions of 

 Wirtgen's ' Mentharum Rhenanarum,' there are, under the name 

 above given, sj)ecimens of several quite distinct forms. Besides, 

 the descriptions of Boreau (Flore du Centre de la France), of Lloyd 

 (Flore de I'Ouest), and of Reichenbach, do not apply to one and the 

 same species. If I had found your mint in Belgium, I should cer- 

 tainly have given it another name, and should have placed it close 

 to M. nepetoides Lej., on account of the form of its inflorescence." — 

 L'Abbe Ch. A. Strail. 



Ceratophijllum aquaticum "Wats, in Lond. Cat. ed. 3"; Syme, 

 E. B., ed. 3, vol. viii., pi. 1266-7. This is the form I recorded as 

 C. apiculatimi Chamisso, in Journ. Bot. vol. xxv., p. 282. The 

 specimens on which I founded that record had no spines at the 

 base, but two minute tubercles in their place. Afterwards, on 

 gathering a large series of examples, I found, on the same branch, 

 fruits with (1) no spines at the base, (2) with two tubercles, (3) with 

 one spine, (4) with two spines, and (5) with a winged spine. As 

 all these varieties in the fruit occurred in apparently full-grown 

 examples, and as the absence of spines seemed in no wise to depend 

 upon the maturity of the fruit, I am induced to believe that our 

 fenland plant is better placed under Mr. Watson's aggregate C. 

 aquaticum. Possibly all Chamisso's "species," or "subspecies," 

 have no substantial existence in nature, but may be, like our fenland 

 varieties, states of one plant. Prof. Babington names our fenland 

 plant C, demersum L., a name which may fairly be given to its usual 

 state ; but, looking at habit and foliage alone, we certainly have a 

 plant that is well described and figured in E. B., ed. 3, pi. 1267, 



