Linnean Society. 283 
The next group, which has no perfect flowers, and a tendency to 
produce hastate or triangular leaves, is the one which presents the 
greatest difficulties. We find here, in the last edition of Mr. Babing- 
ton’s ‘Manual,’ three new species, besides A. erecta of Hudson, 
which, though adopted by Smith as a very rare plant, is, if Babing- 
ton’s view be correct, one of the most common. ‘The surface of the 
seeds and the shape and tubercles of the perigonium or enlarged calyx 
covering the fruit seem to be a good deal relied upon in distinguishing 
these species; but Mr. Woods states that several species, or at least 
several forms, have two sorts of seeds. Those of the smaller calyces 
are slightly depressed, smooth, black and shining; while those 
formed in the larger calyces are much larger, so much so as to have 
occasionally three times the diameter of the upper seeds; they are 
considerably more depressed, of a dark chestnut colour, and wrinkled 
or shagreened. The sepals are all at first smooth, and those in the 
lower part of the plant frequently never become tubercled, This he 
notes as particularly the case in A. angustifolia, of which otherwise 
the perigonium is as distinctly tubercled as in A. erecta. Mr. Woods 
is willing to admit as three common species—A. angustifolia, with 
rhomboid leaves and all the seeds black and smooth; A. patula, with 
triangular leaves, and all or nearly all of the seeds depressed and 
shagreened; and 4d. deltoidea, with triangular leaves, and all or 
nearly all the seeds thick, black and smooth. A. erecta he thinks 
to be different from A. angustifolia, though he is unable to point out 
any satisfactory character. With 4. prostrata and A. microsperma 
he is not sufficiently acquainted to form any judgment. 4. rosea of 
Babington is perhaps a good species, though nearly allied to some 
of the maritime varieties of 4. patula, and perfectly distinct from 
the 4. rosea of continental botanists. The latter is a self-supporting 
plant, and not prostrate like the 4. rosea of Babington. Koch sepa- 
rates A. laciniata and A. rosea from the other species by the lobes 
of the perigonium, united to the middle; but this is often the case in 
A. patula, and not always so in A. laciniata. They are however 
hardened and of a pale colour. The author is disposed to rely more 
on the uniform buff colour of the stem, which in 4. patula and its 
allies is green with resinous stripes. The 4. laciniata of the south 
of Europe is not our English plant. The former has its clusters dis- 
posed in long naked spikes, the latter in short leafy ones. Ours is 
probably the Linnean plant. The perigone in Atriplex varies from 
ovate to rhombic, or to a square attached at the angle, and from that 
to campanulate ; the latter form is so decided in all the specimens 
of the continental plant with fully formed seeds within reach of Mr. 
Woods, that he suggests the trivial name of 4. campanulata. 
Read also the following Letter from Linnzus to the Rev. John 
White, formerly Chaplain at Gibraltar, and brother of Gilbert White 
of Selborne and of Benjamin White, then the principal English pub- 
lisher of works on natural history. Communicated by John Gould, 
Esq., F.L.S. &c. 
os 
