264 40. R. CORTLIFOLIUS. 



ascending, axillary, long, naked, usually nearly or quite 

 without prickles towards their base; top corymbose, or with 

 a few short corymbose erect-patent ultra-axillary branches ; 

 rachis nearly straight, and as well as the peduncles and 

 branches, felted and with small sunken setae. Sepals ovate, 

 cuspidate, hairy, greenish, felted, with small sunken setae, 

 reflexed from the fruit, but often closing over the remains of 

 an abortive flower. Petals contiguous, broad, roundly-ovate, 

 finely serrate, clawed, white ; or sometimes obovate and 

 narrowed below. Filaments white. Anthers greenish. 

 Styles yellow, but sometimes faintly pink at the base. Pri- 

 mordial fruit-stalk short, not as long as the sepals. 



The true R. sublnstris is exactly the typical P. coryli- 

 folius. It has a large, roundly-cordate, acuminate, more or 

 less 3-lobed terminal leaflet, which sometimes divides into 

 three distinct leaflets having the lateral sessile, and the 

 intermediate oval and shortly stalked. Owing to this ten- 

 dency to divide, the leaflet is not quite constant in its form, 

 even upon the same bush, but its base is always cordate. 

 Sometimes the basal and intermediate leaflets on the same 

 side combine into a single bilobed leaflet. 



There does not appear to be any doubt of the Swedish 

 R. corylifolius being identical with this variety to the ex- 

 clusion of the others. It is also apparently the plant which 

 is carefully distinguished from R. fruticosus {R. plicatus or 

 R. discolor; probably the latter here) by Linnaeus in his 

 Wastgota Resa, but unaccountably neglected in his syste- 

 matic works. Hichter (Codex Pot. Linn. No. 3760) con- 

 siders that it was R. ccesius from which Linnaeus distin- 

 guished it. He translates Pjornbdr by R. ccesiu^Sj but Lin- 

 naeus in the Flora Suecica (ed. 2. 172) gives that Swedish 

 name to R. fruticosus. Arrhenius (p. 6) has a long note on 

 the subject, and considers the Linnaean R. maximus fructu 

 nigra to be R. corylifolius (Sm.). 



