176 
not easy to make out in dried material. The corollas are broadly 
campanulate, with a wide open mouth, and well developed, 
more or less reflexed lobes. The bending back of the corolla. 
lobes varies with the age of the flowers, but in mature, though 
not faded, examples it is decidedly more marked than in typical 
Erica vagans. In colour the fresh corollas are a charming rose- 
ink with no tinge of purple. Careful examination of numerous 
plants, all apparently derived from the one original by vegetative 
propagation, has failed to detect any constant morphological 
differences between the leaves, calyx, androecium or gynoecium 
of the St. Keverne plant and typical Hrica vagans, though the 
anthers are paler in the former and the seeds sometimes slightly 
larger, but their reticulation or shallow pitting is the same 
Horticulturally the St. Keverne variety is more desirable 
than the typical plant since the colour of the corollas is more — 
pleasing. Its propagation by cuttings or layering is easy and 
it is likely that its cultivation will spread. 
It is impossible at present to decide fully the botanical status 
of this plant. No morphological characters which would suggest. 
a hybrid origin have been found. Mr. Williams records that the 
plant does not generally seed but sometimes sports. The examples 
at Kew have carried seed this last year (1921) almost as abun- 
dantly as the examples of typical #. vagans ; whether or not this 
seed is viable remains to be seen. If plants are successfully 
raised from seeds it may be possible to suggest the mode of origin 
of the single individual originally found. At present its origin 
by mutation appears to be most likely, and we can only retain 
the name “St. Keverne ” for it as a horticultural designation, 
or perhaps better still call it var. kevernensis with the following 
differential diagnosis : a planta typica corollis late campanulatis 
roseis haud purpureis, lobis plus minusve reflexis praecipue 
differt. Examples of reversion to the parent plant have been 
noticed at Kew by Dr. Hill and others. 
The interesting hybrid between Erica vagans and E. tetralix, 
also discovered by Mr, Williams, described in the Kew Bulletin 
1911, p. 378, and named x EF. Williamsii by Dr. G. C. Druce 
(Gard. Chron. 1911, ii., p. 388), is flourishing at Kew, the numerous 
plants filling a bed close to that occupied by the St. Keverne 
plant described above. The same keen observer has also found 
in Cornwall an abnormal condition of Erica vagans in which the 
floral organs are replaced by small leaves or bracts on an elongated 
axis and their number at the same time greatly increased. 
This sport has been described by Worsdell (Plant Teratology II., 
p. 124), and by Druce (Rep. Bot. Soc. and Exchange Club, 1919, 
p. 569).—W. B. T. 
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