REMINISCENCES. Ixxxvii 



R. affinis, /3. lentiginosus Bab. B. R. 72. 



The stems apparently do not root at end, but the plant can 

 hardly be placed with the Suberedi. It seems far more nearly 

 allied to R. Lindleianus, but is abnormal in respect to stem among 

 Rhamnifolii. The panicle-branches have a long naked unbranched 

 base as in R. Lindleianus, and the rachis has many rather strong 

 deflexed prickles. I have no certain knowledge of the relative 

 lengths of stamens and styles, but apparently the former exceed the 

 latter.* This is an interesting plant as connecting the two sections, 

 but being apparently far more allied to the plants included in 

 Rhamnifolii than to Suberedi. 



Hab. Capel Curig {Lees) and Aber (Bloxam) and Llanberis 

 (/. H. Lewis). Near Plymouth, Devon [Briggs). 



Mr. Lees says in the Phytologist that the flowers are in general 

 small, and the whole plant weak, yet the stem is very prickly, and 

 the point of the prickles are sharp and attenuated. The stem 

 seems to be constantly suberect, but bent to the ground with 

 the flower-shoots. Leaves sometimes 7nate. Panicle fiexuose on 

 luxuriant plants, Avith many alternating axillary racemes of small 

 flowers. Peduncles and bracts covered with long spreading hairs, 

 with a few glands (setae) on the latter. Sepals patent with flower 

 and young fruit, then becoming loosely reflexed. Petals very small. 

 Stamens and styles pale green. 



[Reprinted from the Obituary Notices of the Proceedings of 

 THE Royal Society, Vol. 59.] 



Charles Cardale Babington was born at Ludlow on the 23rd 

 of November, 1808. His father, who was originally a member of the 

 medical profession, afterwards becoming a clergyman of the Church 

 of England, took considerable interest in botany. Whilst his son 

 was still a schoolboy, he retired from work and settled at Bath. 

 The subject of our present memoir entered St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, at the age of eighteen, took his B.A. degree four years 

 later, and his M.A. at the age of twenty-five. At first his inclina- 

 tions were towards entomology, but he attended Henslow's lectures 

 on botany, and like so many others, fell under his magnetic influence. 

 He joined the Linnean Society in 1830, and for a short time after 

 the death of the Rev. L, Jenyns,t was its oldest Fellow. His first 

 botanical book was the Flora Bathoniensis, published in 1834. He 

 visited Ireland in company with the late Mr. John Ball, in 1835, 

 and gave an account of his tour in the 9th volume of the Magazine 

 of Natural History. His Primitiae Florae Sarnicae was the result of 

 excursions taken during two long vacations, in one of which the 

 Rev. W. W. Newbouldl was his companion, and was published in 



* " Stamens and styles atout equal." — Focke. j- [Afterwards Blomefield]. 



J [Not Mr. Newbould. See Journal. — Ed.] 



