308 EXTRACTS FROM BOTANICAL EXCHANGE CLUB REPORT, 1895. 



species ii., just as the form of subspecies i. with similar leaves is 

 extremely rare. To continue to make the leaf-form a specific or 

 subspecific character is most artificial, and Watson well remarked 

 of Forster's plant [Cyhele, i. 92) that it may be retained as a book 

 species "in compliment to its author," but that it is no species in 

 nature. I should not hesitate, therefore, to call Mr. Somerville's 

 plants one, or rather several, of the numerous forms of C. radicans. 

 The var. procumbens Beck was published in Dr. Huth's Monograph, 

 and the leaves, which are not figured, are described as " cordate- 

 reniform, crenate or subentire." I scarcely think, therefore, that 

 any of Mr. Somerville's plants can be exactly this variety, if the 

 description is accurate ; one of them has rather coarsely dentate 

 leaves ; in all the leaves are either longer than broad, or about 

 equally long and broad, the latter of course coming nearest to the 

 description. I cannot bring myself to think that Dr. Huth would 

 have used the term "cordate-reniform" except to describe a leaf 

 which was appreciably broader than long, and I think that, speaking 

 generally, the leaves of Mr. Somerville's plants should be described 

 as cordate-orbicular. The above remarks, so far as they specially 

 refer to the plants under consideration, are made on the supposition 

 that they belong to the rooting subspecies. This appears to me 

 probable ; but as persistently non-rooting prostrate forms do occur, 

 I regard it as a matter of opinion and not of fact. Mr. Somerville 

 has shown me a plant with rooting stem from Loch Insh, gathered 

 on the same day ; but the plants sent do not show the character. — 

 W. H. Beeby. 



Barharea intermedia Boreau. Shirley, Derby, 17th May, 1895. 

 The same plant as was commented on in Bot. Exch. Club Ucp. 1889, 

 p. 244, and 1890, p. 283. Growing here, this plant becomes more 

 luxuriant, and the pods are somewhat less adpressed to the rachis. 

 It is a plant of cultivated ground, not of brookbanks and waysides 

 as B. vulgaris is ; its upper leaves are pinnatifid, its petals are less 

 than twice as long as the sepals, its pod is short-pointed. Specimens 

 agreeing very closely with my plant were gathered in Surrey by 

 Messrs. Marshall and WoUey Dod, and confirmed as intermedia by 

 Svante Murbeck, but pronounced to be B. vulgaris in the Bep. of the 

 Watson Club, 1893-4, and 1894-5, Appendix; so that there seems 

 some variance as to this species between British and foreign con- 

 noisseurs of the genus. — Wm. R. Linton. Among some Barbareas 

 of Mr. Marshall's, which I sent some time ago to Docent Murbeck, 

 there were several which were named by him B. intermedia. Tlie 

 plant mentioned by Mr. Linton is no doubt the one from a bank 

 near Thursley, Surrey ; this much resembles Mr. Linton's plant, 

 the others do not. Tlae Shirley specimens now sent are immature, 

 and descriptions of the fruiting raceme are scarcely applicable to 

 plants in that condition, because the relative proportions of the pods 

 change greatly as they ripen. I do not see the affinity with B. vul- 

 garis, and think that this plant differs chiefly from our ordinary 

 B. prcBcox when in a similar stage of growth, in the pods not being 

 incurved. Barbareas, however, seem to be liable to aberrations of 

 this sort, and I think that ripe fruit will probably show Mr. Linton's 



