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V. On a remarkable Variety ofPedicidaris Sylvatica. In a Letter 

 to Alexander MacLeatjr Esq. F. B. S. and Sec. L. S. Bij James 

 Edward Smith, M.D. F.R.S. P.L.S. 



Read February 7, 1809. 



Dear Sir, 

 1 HAVE lately been favoured by the Marquis of Stafford with a 

 specimen of a remarkable variety of the Fedicularis sylvatica^ 

 gathered by his lordship last summer on his estate in Sutherland. 

 It consists of a solitary flower of that plant, which, instead of 

 its, proper ringent form, with two long and two short stamens^ 

 has a salver-shaped regular corolla, with six stamens, four of which 

 are longer than the others. There is also what appears to be the 

 style partly changed to a petal, and yet bearing a membranous 

 expansion like one side of an anther. I conceive therefore that 

 this is really an attempt at a seventh stamen, though become 

 partly a petal. There is however no other sign of a style.* The 

 Marquis sought in vain for another specimen ; but it is re- 

 markable that Mr. Hooker and Mr. Borrer found one resembling, 

 it in the same neighbourhood this very season. 



Tliis Specimen is very interesting to me, as being another in- 

 stance of the same kind of variety as I have noticed in Galeopsis 

 Tetrahit at Matlock. See Fl. Lapponica, ed. 2. 201. I Lave also 

 had in my own garden some regular salver-shaped flowers of 



Chelone. 



