CONSPECTUS POLYG ALARUM EUROP.EARUM. 241 



chaffy scales. Pedmicle 2-3 in. long, bearing 3-4 lanceolate 

 striated clas^Ding bracts. Spike laxly 3-6-flowered ; racliis veiy 

 flexuose ; bracts J in. long, lanceolate, tiglitly clasping the calyx, 

 thinlj'- lepidote. Calyx ^ in., naked ; sepals lanceolate. Capsule 

 glabrous, cylindrical, 1-1^ in. long ; valves |- line broad. 



Paraguay, at the mouth of the Eio Spane, near Villa Conception, 

 B a] ansa, 619 ! 



Calyx and capsule of T. reciirvata, from which it differs by its 

 short leaves, numerous flowers, and remarkably zigzag spike- 

 rachis. 



Excluded Species. 



Diaphorantheina versicolor, Beer, 'Brom.,' p. 155, founded on a 

 figure of Sloane's, is Tillandsia [Plati/stachys) tenuifulia, Linn. 



D. suhidata. Beer loc. cit., founded on ' Fl. Flum.,' vol. iii., 

 t. 127, is T. [Anoplojihijtiim) stricta, Soland. 



D. hifiora. Beer, p. 156, is T. {Platystachys) hijiora, Euiz & 

 Pavon. 



D. triflora, Beer, p. 155, founded on a figure of ' Flora Flumi- 

 nensis ' (tab. 134), much too vague to be safely determinable, 

 belongs probably to section Anoplophytum, and is clearly not a 

 Diaphorantliema. 



CONSPECTUS POLYGALAEUM EUEOP^AEUM. ^ ^ y y 



By Alfred W. Bennett, M.A., B.Sc, F.L.S. ' 7>^ 



The review of the British species- and subspecies of Polygala 

 which I contributed to the number of the * Journal of Botany ' for 

 June, 1877 (vol. vi., p. 168), may be fitly followed by a sketch of 

 the European species of the same genus. With the exception of 

 the diagnoses in the 'Floras' of the various countries of Europe, 

 the only general review of the European species with which I am 

 acquainted is by H. G. Eeichenbach, fil., in the 18th volume of 

 the 'Icones Florae Germanicae et Helvetica, ' (1858); there is, also, 

 one of the species of Western and Central Europe, by Dumortier, 

 in the 'Bulletin de la Societe Eoyale de Botanique de Belgique,' 

 vol. vii., 1868, pp. 335-345 ; and the admhable one of the Italian 

 species, by Caruel, in the 1st volume of the ' Nuovo Giornale 

 Botanico Italiano ' for 1869. The chief seat of the genus being 

 the Tropics of both hemispheres, where only, besides the Cape of 

 Good Hope, they attain the size of shrubs, the number of European 

 species is small compared with that of most other similar areas, 

 20 out of about 300. New Zealand is the only country of any 

 extent entirely wanting in the genus, and, indeed, in the Order. 

 Accepting the Linnean limitations of the genus Polygala, it is the 

 only one of 17 genera belonging to the Natural Order Polygalacece 

 represented in Europe. Of the 20 European species, 13 belong to 

 a group or subgenus which is distinctly European in its type ; the 

 remaining 7 species represent three distinct types, 5 of them 



2i 



