442 Mr. C. C. Babington on British species of Plumbaginacese. 



wards repeatedly forked with acute-angled axils. Outer bract 

 almost wholly diaphanous, bluntly pointed ; inner twice as long, 

 blunt, upper half wholly diaphanous. Leaves short, variable in 

 breadth and often rather acute, usually with a small mucro from 

 below their extremity ; the point sometimes so strongly recurved 

 as to cause the leaf to appear retuse. 



Muddy shores of Norfolk and Suffolk. Jersey, Dr. Jos. Dick- 

 son. 



British botanists will doubtless complain that the name usually 

 employed by them for this plant is here replaced by one nearly 

 or altogether a stranger to them, and which certainly seems 

 far from appropriate when applied to an English plant ; but it 

 may be remarked that the name S. reticulata has been attached 

 to so many quite different species as to make its retention a source 

 of confusion and difficulty rather than of use. The remark of 

 Boissier seems very just when, after stating that the Linnsean 

 plant is probably that now called S. cancellata (Bernh.), he adds, 

 " hoc nomen cseterum multis plantis attributum omnino rejici- 

 enduni.^' The Linnsean specific character is short, but to my 

 mind conclusive against our plant being his S. reticulata. His 

 words are, " S. scapo paniculato prostrato, ramis sterilibus retro- 

 fiexis nudis, foliis cuneiformibus " (Sp. PI. 394) ; and it is curious 

 to observe how Smith, when publishing the supposed S. reticu- 

 lata in ' Eng. Bot.^ (t. 328), slightly altered that character by the 

 addition of the words " a little pointed " to the description of 

 the leaves: in the 'Eng. Fl.^ (ii. 116) he has omitted the term 

 " ramis retroflexis " of Linnseus, but still says " leaves wedge- 

 shaped " in the specific chai'acter, but alters it to " spathulate " 

 in the description. Our plant certainly cannot be correctly de- 

 scribed as having " ramis sterilibus retroflexis," for they are all 

 ascending or even erect, forming very acute angles at their bifur- 

 cations ; neither are its leaves at all " wedge-shaped," but may 

 be correctly designated obovate-spathulate. The remark in ' Eng. 

 Bot.,^ that the "bark in our specimens is a little crisped and 

 tuberculated, which we do not observe in the Linnsean ones/' 

 shows that Smith was not altogether satisfied of the identity of 

 the plants. 



Let us now turn to the S. cancellata (Bernh.), a specimen of 

 which (the S. furfuracea, Reich. Fl. exsic.) is now before me, and 

 we shall find the " ramis retroflexis " of Linnseus, or as Boissier 

 says, " scapis ramosissimis rectangule-infracto-flexuosis," and 

 also the "foliis cuneiformibus/' or ashe describes them, "obovato- 

 cuneatis retusis." 



Having I think disposed of the name S. reticulata as applica- 

 ble to our plant, we now come to the proof of its identity with 

 the S. caspica (Willd.), and here it may be remarked that Sir W. 



