374 Mr. F. J. A. Hort o.i a supposed new species of Rubus. 



cifer; and notwithstanding the extraordinaiy position of the 

 organ, it must be allowed that its structure goes far to support 

 this view. It must be remembered that in some of the lower 

 Annelida the auditory organs are situated, not in the head, but 

 one or two rings behind it, and in Polyophthalmus every ring has 

 its pair of eyes. — See Quatrefages, Ann. d. Sc. Nat. 1850. 



XXXVI. — On a supposed new species 0/ Rubus. 

 By Fenton J. A. Hort, B.A.* 



At a time when descriptions of Brambles, published by botanists 

 whose qualifications have been fully tested and acknowledged in 

 other fields, are received with incredulity and even derision, 

 those who possess no such advantages have little right to expect 

 a gentler and more charitable treatment. If therefore it were 

 allowable to be guided wholly by personal considerations, I 

 should not venture to add another species to our already crowded 

 list : but cowardice and mock-modesty are as unjustifiable in sci- 

 ence as in anything else. It is at all times unfair to assad the 

 worth of a supposed new species and escape the labour of honest 

 investigation by recklessly imputing vanity to the describer : but 

 in the case of Brambles such imputations are nut less absurd ; for 

 the possible attention of the isolated few who now study this genus 

 can surely have but poor attractions for a vain mind, when accom- 

 panied by the certain suspicion of the great mass of botanists, 

 good as well as bad : and on the other hand, there is an obvious 

 restraint in that fear of future opprobrium from the chance of 

 erroneous conclusions and consequent ultimate rejection, which 

 must always haunt the study of difiicult groups ox plants. 

 Until then a time arrive, when the worshipers of observation 

 and sober induction shall cease to assume u priori the worthless- 

 ness of the careful observations of others, conducted with a view 

 to trace the manifold laws of vaiiation through the living forms 

 of Nature under the influence of the roost diiTercnt circum- 

 stances, we must be content to go our own way quietly, asking 

 no more than bare toleration from those who afi'ect to try our 

 conclusions by a few dry fragments of an isolated form or two 

 out of each species. To students of Brambles therefore, and to 

 them alone, the following description is oflfered : — 



Rubus imbricatus ; caule decurvato ramosissimo angulato sulcata 

 glabro, aculeis parvis validis declinatis, foliis quinatis subtus pal- 

 lidioribus convexis, foliolis imbricatis suhconvexis subundulatis ciis- 

 pidatis, infimis breviter pedicellatis terminali subrotundo cordate 



* Read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, April 10, 1851. 



