286 'i'lH^ NxVrURALlST. 



he has sent me shows the followmg characters ;— Leaves full green and 

 quite glabrous above, paler beneath, quite glabrous over the blade, but 

 very glandular on the midrib, the main serrations deep, furnished mostly 

 with three or four accessory gland-tipped teeth on each side, the fully 

 developed terminal leaflet measuring about an inch and three quarters long 

 by an inch broad, in shape elliptical, with a slight ovate tendency. Petioles 

 with abundant setse, but neither hairs nor aciculi. Stipules with large 

 leafy divergent lanceolate auricles, glabrous on the back, but copiously 

 setoso-ciliated. Fruit (unripe,) ovate-ampulliform in shape, pendant, and 

 quite glabrous. Sepals about an inch long, one only with a small linear 

 pinna. The body of the blade small, but the point elongated and dilated 

 at its summit. The sepal naked on the back, tomentose, and slightly setose 

 towards the edge, copiously setoso-ciliated. 



In the whole of the British species B. alpina is perhaps pearest 

 sjnnoslssima, but from this the difference in the armature of the stems, 

 the densely toothed leaves, the pendant scarlet fruit, and the long leaf- 

 pointed sepals readily distinguish it ; neither are the flowers invariably 

 single, as in the latter, but on the contrary there are three or four 

 of them when the plant is at all luxuriant. The petals are a pleasant 

 deep bright crimson, so that when in flower it is very conspicuous and 

 beautiful. 



It is not unfrequently cultivated, and is scarcely likely, from its Con- 

 tinental distribution, (vide sujjraj to grow wild in Britain. But there is 

 a bare possibility that it may be found to be a British plant ultimately. 

 Amongst a set of roses which I received many years ago from my valued 

 friend John Tatham, of Settle, all of which he thought, though they were 

 not labelled separately, had been gathered in the Craven district, were two 

 specimens of li. alpina, and another dear friend, who knows the plant 

 well, tells me that he has an indistinct recollection of seeing it many years 

 ago, from the top of a coach, amongst the Chalk Wolds of East Yorkshire. 

 Under these circumstances it seems quite worth while for our botanists to 

 learn what it is like, and keep it in memory. 

 Thirsk, September, 1864. 



[We may state that Professor Babington, to whom these papers have 

 been submitted, says that he quite agrees with Mr. Baker, and cannot 

 admit B. alpina as having any claims on our native flora. — Eds. Nat.] 



