1841] BOTANICAL CORRESPONDENCE. 441 



[The following letters to Professor J. H. Balfour, M.D., have been received 

 since the preceding portion of the Botanical Correspondence was almost 

 all in type. They are added, as it is believed they will be interesting to- 

 many readers ; and they are followed by two letters written to Professor 

 Elias Fries, Upsala, and one to M. Charles Gay, son of the eminent 

 botanist of that name. With these two exceptions no letters to foreign, 

 botanists are included in this volume — Ed.]. 



St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1841. 

 Dear Balfour, — I send with this in a pill-box (fit thing to send to 

 a doctor) a cone from under six feet of solid peat bog, at Burris- 

 hoole, near Newport, Mayo, to be presented to the Botanical Society 

 at the next meeting. I obtained several of them through the 

 kindness of the clergyman of Newport, and submitted them to 

 Don's examination, as being the person best acquainted with the 

 genus Finns amongst British botanists. He informs me that they 

 are certainly the cones of Pinus Mughus (Jacq.) which, however, he 

 considers as a variety of P. sylvestris, but quite different from any 

 of the varieties now native in Scotland. It will be observed by 

 the cone now sent, (which is a fair example of the whole collection), 

 that they are scarcely half the size of those of P. sylvestris; the 

 apex of the scales is quadrilateral, and the wing of the seed, 

 although similar in shape to that of Pinus sylvestris, is yet only a 

 fifth part of the size. It is interesting to find that a tree which 

 must have formed at least a portion of the native forest of that 

 wild part of Ireland, in which a tree is now scarcely to be found, 

 should be thus proved to belong to a form of Pinus not now native 

 in Britain, but confined as I believe to the Austrian Alps. The 

 native forests of that part of Ireland have now been totally des- 

 troyed for about 200 years, one clause in the original grants to 

 English settlers having required their destruction, and employment 

 in the smelting of iron. Don states that these cones agree exactly 

 with others that he has seen from the bogs of Armagh. Perhaps 

 you will read any part of the above that you may see fit at the 

 meeting at which the cone is presented. As I suppose that you 

 are now again at work at the Catalogue, I may as well send to you 

 my arrangement of Mentha, which I have just finished. I would 

 place them in the following order : 



Mentlui — 1. rotu7idifolia (L.) j3 velutina (Bab.). 



2, sylvestris (L.). 



3. viridis (L.). 

 (?) 4, crispa (L.). 



5. pratensis (Sole) (gracilis Sm.). 



6. piperita (L.) /3 sylvestris (Sole). 



7. aquatica (L.) /3 citrata (Bab.) (M. citrata Sm.). 



8. saliva (L.) j3 rubra (Benth.), 7 gentilis (Benth.). 



8. acutifolia (?) (Bab.) {M. acutifolia Sm.). 



9. arvensis (L.) ^ agrestis (Benth.). 

 10. Pulegium (L.). 



