1849] BOTANICAL CORRESPONDENCE. 313 



Society Meeting, there might be some well fitted for the " Botanical 

 Gazette," such as short notices of plants. You ask for specimens of 

 a number of British plants, and I wonder that they have not already 

 reached you. I will endeavour to supply you with some of them. 

 There are others of which I know that I have now no duplicates ; , 

 some I do not possess myself. I am glad to learn that you have 

 interesting Hieracia and Eubi. I am endeavouring to get our plants 

 into conformity with Fries' arrangement in his recent great book 

 about them. — Yours very truly, Charles C. Babington. 



To the Eev. W. H. Purchas. 



St. John's College, Cambridge, Nov. 24, 1849. 



My dear Sir, — I did certainly hope to have had the pleasure of 

 calling upon you at Ross, but, although I spent some days within 

 seven miles of that place, I was prevented from carrying my wishes 

 into effect. The specimen of Ulex sent in your letter I fully believe 

 to be U. Gallii. It is what I called U. nanus major. The characters 

 (on paper) between the plants are very slight, but I do not think 

 that any doubt concerning them can exist when they are known in. 

 a living state. As you have Malvern specimens, it may be as well 

 for me to state that U. minor (Lees) in the " Botany of Malvern " is 

 U. nanus. The Mentha comes very near to M. acutifolia, which is a 

 very dubious plant. I am fearful of giving a name to the Sagina, 

 which has more the look of apetala than ciliata. You will do well to 

 look after it next season. I now come to the Epipactis, which has 

 interested me greatly, and should be looked after next summer, 

 and the permanency of its structure determined. It is very like- 

 indeed to E. ovalis, and, I fancy, will prove identical with that plant, 

 notwithstanding the terminal lip-lobe wanting the rugose space. 

 I presume that the tip of this lobe, when laid flat, made the lip as 

 long as the sepals and petals. There is still much to be made out 

 concerning the forms combined under the E. latifolia of authors. A 

 plant which I found several years since near Keswick, and of which 

 my friend Mr. Hort has now obtained more advanced specimens, has 

 a lobe to its lip nearly of the shape of your plant, but then the lip is 

 much shorter than the sepals, etc. I fancy that I sent this Keswick 

 plant to Copenhagen lately, and it is decided by Danish botanists to 

 be new to them. I shall make a point of looking for your remarks 

 on the Glycerias in the " Phytologist," but shall not notice the plants 

 in that journal myself. My friend Mr. Townsend has a paper in 

 hand about them, in which I believe he will describe three species. 

 I leave the subject in his hands, for he was the first to notice the 

 existence of three forms in England, and state the fact to the Edin- 

 burgh Botanical Society. — Yours very truly, Charles C. Babington. 



If you could at any time send to London, the Eubi might be left 

 at the Linnaean Society's house in Soho Square, or at Taylor's 

 Printing Office, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 



