5. R. PLICATUS. Gl 



furnished with rather abundant strong hooked prickles; ter- 

 minal flower more shortly stalked than the lateral flowers. 

 Sepals greenish, but finely and thickly silky externally, be- 

 coming glabrous except at the edge which has a felted 

 border of the same fine wool which lines the inner side, 

 reflexed. Petals distant, white or pinkish, ovate-spathulate, 

 twice as long as the calyx, entire. Anthers and styles pale 

 cream-coloured. Primordial fruit-stalk equalling the sepals 

 and oblong fruit which is of a claret or blood-red colour, 

 but ultimately becomes quite black, and is slightly acid. 



R. nitidics (W. and N.) is usually joined to P. plicatus 

 by those botanists who do not accept it as a distinct species. 

 Weihe, Godrou, and Boreau ascribe an adpressed calyx to it. 

 Weihe's words are very decided, he says, "calycis laciniae... 

 peracta anthesi refract*, maturo autem fructu rursum pa- 

 tentes vel etiam incurvae." Godi'on also lays much stress 

 upon it and uses the words " son calice applique." My 

 specimens of English plants which it is probable belong 

 to P. nitidus do not show decidedly the presence or 

 absence of this character, which I am inclined to think 

 is inconstant in this species, as I believe it to be in 

 P. affinis. But there is another character upon which 

 much stress is laid by those who separate the plants : P. ni- 

 tidus has a more divided and decidedly prickly panicle; or 

 rather, it has a panicle, whilst its ally has only a raceme. 

 It is very difficult, indeed I consider it impossible, to distin- 

 guish between these forms of inflorescence in Pubi. I have 

 before me a specimen from Mr Bloxam (gathered in 1846 at 

 Appleby Road, Twycross, and marked as " No. 1. P. plica- 

 tus^'), where two flowering shoots are given, of which one is 

 simply a raceme like that of tyi)ical P. plicatus, bearing a 

 very few slender declining prickles as in that plant ; and the 

 other is a panicle in which 9 out of the 11 branches are 

 themselves branched (each of the upper having 2 and the 



6 



