52 



From the foregoing statement it is evident that by his Melissa Ca- 

 lamintha Linnaeus intended either the plant so understood by us in 

 England, or the other of our two commoner British species, M. Ne- 

 peta (the Thymus Calamintha and T. Nepeta of Smith) ; we think the 

 former, from the circumstances just detailed. Be that as it may, the 

 Isle of Wight plant is assuredly neither the one nor the other, and 

 therefore cannot be the Melissa Calamintha of Linnaeus, or be justly 

 designated by any of its supposed synonymes. If our two old Cala- 

 miuts are kept distinct, the greater one may, without much risk of 

 creating a misnomer, be considered as the Melissa Calamintha of Lin- 

 naeus ; if, on the contrary, experience should demonstrate both to be 

 but one species, that name may still be preserved to each variety, or 

 be merged in that of the lesser, or M. Nepeta. 



I have ascertained most satisfactorily, from descriptions, plates and 

 specimens, that our island plant is the Melissa Calamintha of Ben- 

 tham,* Reichenbach, Hoppe, and other distinguished botanists, and 

 not less convincingly that the genuine Linnaean species of that name 

 is by others as well known and recognised abroad as it universally has 

 been in this country, though the nomenclature and synonymes of all 

 the three are often strangely confused and misunderstood, for want of 

 clear specific characters to each. Now it being manifestly inadmis- 

 sible for two species to retain the same name, I have ventured to be- 

 stow a new appellation on the subject of these remarks, and have 

 accordingly called it sylvatica, from its place of growth, so different 

 from the open sunny situations which the other British species affect, 

 but in which this languishes. So much, indeed, does our plant love 

 shelter, that its beauty is best displayed by growing it in pots, and 

 keeping it in the greenhouse, where it will amply repaj-^ the trouble of 

 the cultivator, in the long raceme-like aggregate of cymose clusters, 

 with their large unilateral blossoms of a delicate rose-colour, elegantly 

 spotted, and of transparent brilliancy. It is easily propagated by 

 cuttings, which strike readily. 



Wm. Arnold Bromfield. 



Ryde, Isle of Wight, Jan. 15, 1845. 

 * As I learn from the talented author of the Monographia Labiatarum' himself. 



