CORRESPONDENOE. 21 
first series of the * Phytologist’ (vols. i. and ii). Mr. H. C. Watson 
especially took an active part in it, and to him we are chiefly indebted 
for the nearly unanimous opinion of British botanists, that the plant 
usually called Oxlip, and most erroneously often named P. elatior, is a 
hybrid between the Cowslip and Primrose. It is curious also to find 
that in France as well as England these hybrids have been confused. 
with the true P. elatior (Jacq.). 
My object in this note is not to reopen any part of what I believe to 
be a settled question, but to direct attention to the fact that long discus- 
sions have led to the same results in France and England. With very few 
exceptions, we are all now agreed that P. veris, P, vulgaris, and P. elatior, 
are distinct species; and that P. variabilis (Goup.), the .P. elatior of 
many English collectors, is the name of an endless series of ever-vary- 
ing hybrids between P. veris and P. vulgaris. C. C. BABINGTON. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Native Country of Tecomaria (Tecoma) Capensis. 
York, 23rd November, 1863. 
Having read in the ‘Journal of Botany,’ Vol. I. p. 21, the suggestion of 
Tecomaria (Tecoma) Capensis being a naturalized plant in the Cape of Good 
Hope colony, and having travelled much there in 1838, 1839, and 1840, with 
my eyes open to its plants and their conditions,—I venture to state my convic- 
tion, that from the extensive range this beautiful shrub has, both within the 
Cape colony, and far beyond its frontier, on the eastern side of South Africa, 
extending even into isolated mountain copses, far from the habitations of civi- 
lized man, there can exist no reasonable doubt of its being an aboriginal 
native of that country. In Thunberg's time little was known of those parts 
of the country to the eastward, where it abounds. I do not remember seeing 
either it, or its frequent companion Plumbago Capensis, in the Cape Town 
district, or towards the west coast. I presume that when these two were named 
it was not because they grew wild near Cape Town, or the promontory called 
the Cape of Good Hope, but because they grew within the colony of that name ; 
but both have a range of several hundreds of miles, especially on the eastern 
side of South Africa: and I am mistaken if I did not see Plumbago Capensis 
also by the side of the Brisbane river, in Queensland, Australia ; but I had nei- 
ther the opportunity of examining it nor of bringing away a specimen, 
JAMES BACKHOUSE. 
[The Queensland Plumbago is probably P. Zeylanica, common in tropical 
New Holland.— E».] 
i 
