(| 164 ) 
XII. Remarks on fome Foreign Species of Orobanche. By Fames Edward 
Smith, M.D. F.R.S. P.L.S. 
Read Oéiober 3d, 1797. 
HE Britith fpecies of Orodanche have till lately been very ill 
underftood, and it appears upon examination that the foreign 
ones {till require elucidation. ‘The very firft fpecies in Linnzus, 
Orobanche levis, when put to the teft of botanical criticifm, is found 
to be a non-entity; its hiftory having been fabricated, partly from 
fynonyms which belong to Orchis abortiva, and partly from thofe of 
a real Orobanche, which however Linnzus never knew, and which 
does not anfwer to the name or charaéter of his fuppofed /evis, 
The original authority for the Orobanche levis is the firft edition 
of Species Plantarum, p. 632, where it is taken up entirely from other 
authors, who have defcribed it as being found near Montpellier, of 
which place Linneus accordingly gives it as a native, nor does he 
mention its being known in any other country. He had no fpeci- 
men from thence in his colleétion, though he had then before him 
a fpecimen of a Siberian plant, figured in the Plora Sibirica of 
Gmelin, (who fent it to Linnzus,) vol. iii. tab. 46. fig. 2, as an Oro- 
banche, which Linneus fufpected might be the fame with the ~ 
Montpellier fpecies, and therefore marked it /evis, with a mark of 
interrogation, as it ftill remains in his herbarium. It anfwers in- 
; deed 
