348 TWO BERKSHIEE VARIETIES. 



a date-stone, of isoseles triangular section in horizontal plane, the 

 odd side being the longest. lu surface view one side may be re- 

 garded as flat, the other as strongly keeled. One process of the 

 arillus lies along the keel, one along either angle (the basal angles 

 as seen in section), and the fourth lies appressed to the flat side; 

 i. e. the long side as seen in section. A few of these shrubs in the 

 patch were adventuring tufts of tender green leaves, not yet out- 

 spread — a promise of spring. 



TWO BERKSHIRE VARIETIES. 



By G. Claridge Bruce, F.L.S. 



On p. 222 I published a note on Hellehorus occidentaUs, which 

 Mr. Britten, in his review of my Flora of Berkshire, considered 

 I had included on insufficient evidence. I desire now to notice 

 the two other instances which he specified. 



Iberis amara L. var. ruficaulis (Lej.). 



With regard to this, I followed the Kew hidex, Koch's Synopsis 

 Flora Germanic(B, and Be Candolle's Systema in treating Lejeune's 

 plant as a species. Not having seen Lejeune's Flore de Spa^ 

 I borrowed the description in Koch's Synopsis (p. 70, 1837), which 

 runs thus: — " b. minor, foliis angustioribus, calyce violaceo et 

 petalis in violaceum vergentibus, et caule purpurascente. 1. ruji- 

 cauHs, Lejeune, Fl. Spa, ii. p. 58. I. amara, b. [Lejeune & 

 Courtois] Comp. Fl. Belg. ii. p. 311. Inter plantam vulgarem 

 occurrit." Mr. Britten noticed that I made no allusion to the 

 clothing of the stem in connection with the word nijicaulis ; neither 

 do Koch, or Rouy and Foucaud, perhaps for the reason which 

 mfluenced myself, viz. that the hairiness of the stem in Iberis 

 amara appears to be very variable and mconstant, as is the colour 

 of the flowers. My notice of the characters of ruficaulis, ** smaller 

 size and purplish flowers," intentionally brief, seems to have 

 misled Mr. Britten to think that I was alluding to the ordinary 

 purple-flowered form of /. amara, which grows frequently with, and 

 gradually merges into, the type, but is not necessarily of smaller 

 size or identical with ruficaulis, nor did I dream of naming it as a 

 variety. It is already made a var. under the name violacea by 

 Be la Croix, and a specimen contributed by A. Beseglise from Berry 

 in 1862 is to be seen in the Herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes at 

 Paris. I inserted var. ruficaulis in my Flora of Berkshire on the 

 ground of the agreement of my plant with Koch's description, and 

 after comparison with a continental specimen ; I have since sub- 

 mitted my plant from Lowbury to M. Rouy, and he considers my 

 determination to be correct. I may observe that I have the same 

 plant from Watlington, in Oxfordshire. 



Rouy and Foucaud (vol. ii. pp. 135-140) make I. ruficaulis Lej. 

 one of eight forms of I. amara L., and synonymous with I. decipiens 



