A NEW VARIETY OF ANDROMEDA POLIFOLIA. 377 
needful, as my dissections have been limited to three fronds of this 
Wolfia presented to me through the courtesy of a friend. 
I had made drawings of the stomata and cells of the epidermis of 
these Duckweeds, which are not engraved here, as I have since learned 
that they have been given by Hoffmann. 
The root-sheaths of the Duckweeds may afford good characters. In 
Lemna polyrrhiza the tip of the sheath is sharp, while in Z. gibba and 
L. minor it is blunt, as noticed by me in the * Annals of Natural History,’ 
May 1861. It may now be added, that the root-sheath of Z. érisulea 
is curved and sharp-pointed. Of all these root-sheaths I trust to give 
a figure in a future number. 
A NEW VARIETY OF ANDROMEDA POLIFOLIA. 
By RarrH Tate. 
Professor C. C. Babington, in his ‘ Manual of British Botany,’ page 
214 (1862), writes of Andromeda polifolia, * peduncles two or three 
times as long as the flowers," and ‘not as in E. B. Now, in the *En- 
glish Botany,’ pl. 713, the peduncle is represented only equal in length 
with the flower, and Professor Babington's statement on this figure 
implies that the length of the peduncle is there erroneously represented. 
The accuracy of Sowerby’s figure being called in question, led me to 
examine carefully the plant when first I became acquainted with it, 
which was a few years since, in the North of Ireland, where I have 
only met with the species. The numerous specimens of Andromeda 
polifolia, from the Cotton Moss, co. Down, that I have examined, 
agreed with Sowerby’s figure, the peduncle being as long as or but 
slightly exceeding the flower ; not a single exception to this came under 
my notice. Specimens, far advanced in maturity, from Wolf Island 
Bay, co. Antrim, have the proportionate length of flower and peduncle 
as about 2 to 3. 
The peduncle of Andromeda polifolia, in the * Flora Lapponica,’ is 
represented as about three times the length of the flower, from which 
it would appear that Professor Babington’s description agrees with 
the typical plant. Clearly, then, the specimen figured by Sowerby and 
those gathered by me in Ireland present a slight departure from the 
type—in the persistent (?) comparatively short peduncle, the length of 
which about equals that of the flower. 
