144 19. R. VILLICAULIS. 



Its stem is not very hairy and has small scattered unequal 

 prickles, the smaller of which may have been gland-tipped, 

 but if so they have now nearly all lost their heads. Its 

 leaves are nearly naked, small, and finely toothed, but have 

 that approach to a double toothing which is usual in this 

 species. It is an elegant plant, if I may judge from the only 

 specimen that I have seen. 



The Rev. W. H. Coleman gave to me a very large form 

 of this species ; apparently a wood plant. Here the prickles 

 are much smaller than is usual in the species, the leaves are 

 quinate with leaflets scarcely abnormal except by their very 

 large size. The panicle is enormously long ; the joints of 

 the rachis, the branches and peduncles being all much 

 lengthened, the peduncle of the terminal flower alone ex- 

 cepted. It was gathered at Mardly Heath, Hertfordshire. 



The R. pampinosus (Lees) is not to be separated from 

 this species; nor does it seem distinguishable as a variety. 

 The cordate-ovate-orbicular cuspidate leaflets and usually 

 very large panicle are its chief peculiarities, even in its 

 describer's opinion, and they are found in every state of 

 change until the usual R. villicaulis is reached. I was led 

 to suppose that it might be a distinct species from having 

 confounded plants bearing felted leaves with the true R. 

 villicaulis. I have received the same form [R. pampinosus 

 Lees) from Mr Lange, who gathered it near Frederica in 

 Jutland, and gave it the name of R. umbrosus (Weihe), 

 Arrhenius has written upon the ticket "mihi ignotus." 

 But the R. vulgaris of Lange' s Flora^ to which he joins the 

 Jutland plant, seems to be my R. macrophyUus a umbrosus; 

 for he quotes the specimens called R. Sprengelii in Fries's 

 Herb. Normale as belonging to the same species, and they 

 appear to be certainly my R. macropliyllus a umh'osus; not 

 R. villicaulis. M. Questier published the same plant (in 

 Billott's Fl. Gall, et Germ, exsic. No. 2453) under the name 



