348 CHARLES CARDALE BABINGTON. [I860- 



To A. G. More, Esq. 



Cambridge, Bee. 4, 1860. 



Dear More, — I am now unable again to examine the Ranunculus 

 from Niton. I certainly do not think that it can be either 

 Drmietii or trichophyllus. I have often found heterophyllus totally 

 without any flat leaves, and believe that such plants (and they often 

 grow abundantly together) never produce them, even probably in- 

 successive generations. How that is, and why, I cannot say. Your 

 plant has fewer veins in the petals than any heterophyllus that I have 

 ever seen, and I suspect that it may be distinct, and even that 

 possibly the without-floating-leaved heterophyllus may not be the- 

 same in species as the typical floating-leaved plant. Nevertheless 

 most modern botanists who have attended to the plants recognise 

 two states of heterophyllus such as these. It will indeed be fortunate 

 if you succeed in finding any floating leaves in Niton pond next 

 summer. I do not expect it. Do you make sufiicient allowance for 

 the deposit of lime upon the leaves, when you call those of the 

 specimens sent from the little pond at Bembridge " quite rigid " ? I 

 do think that the specimen now sent is floribundus, and if you can 

 prove that it descends from true heterophyllus you will do good service, 

 for you will upset nearly all our supposed series of Batrachians. I 

 do not see how the wet or dry season is to have any effect upon the- 

 plants, and do not believe that it has. In re Lepigona. The 

 specimens now sent from the Isle of Wight I call negledum. They 

 are the first I have received from the island, and very acceptable to 

 me. That from Bembridge I also consider as negledum. You have 

 put no names, but I presume that 'so you would have marked them 

 if asked to do so. Your specimen from Cheshire is exceedingly like 

 my authentic salinum from Sweden. Fries and Kindberg say that 

 many of the seeds of salinum are winged, and I find such seeds on 

 the authentic specimen from Denmark, named by Fries for Lange. 

 Did you find any on the Cheshire plant ? I find a Avingless seed or 

 two on the paper, which are smooth, and very like those of the 

 Danish plant. The pedicels seem to vary in length. The lower 

 ones are much the longest, both on the Cheshire and Danish plants. 

 I see that Lange notices an apterous state of L. salinum, which seems 

 to be your plant from Cheshire. Mr. Hunt ought to get more of 

 it, and send it to you. It is probably not even yet too late in the 

 season. In the paper which you sent some time since, you group 

 the Lepigona according to the winged or wingless seeds. That ^vill 

 not do, but probably their being smooth or tubercled will. So- 

 Kindberg and others group them. I doubt your Carez Oederi being 

 correctly named, but am not quite sure about it. All the three 

 papers of Parietaria are diffusa, I suppose. May not your Valerianella 

 be eriocarpa without hairs ? There is exceeding confusion about the 

 crown of these plants, they seem to vary much in the extent of 

 toothing. I doubt yours having a central tooth in front. Have 



