177 



Synopsis, ray friend, Mr. W. Allport Leigh ton, of Shrewsbury, the 

 acute author of the elaborate ' Flora of Shropshire,' who was him- 

 self then hardly out of the labyrinth, liberally supplied me with 

 duplicates of all the species Dr. Ltndley had, himself, very kindly 

 named for him ; and this courtesy of my friend's 1 ought the more 

 gratefully to acknowledge, as it fairly set me up in the blackberry 

 business, in which I have since embarked to some extent, though not 

 without staining my fingers, and, for aught I know, ultimately leading 

 me, as Dr. Salter seems inclined to think, into ruinous speculations ! 

 However, among the suite of named Rubi thus obligingly forwarded 

 me by Mr. Leighton, was " R. diver sifoliiis,^'' thus absolutely from 

 the very fingers and observation of Dr. Lindley himself. This speci- 

 men I still possess ; and both the barren stem and panicle are abun- 

 dantly clothed with glands, and the former with setae. But to go 

 further than my specimen, and prove decidedly that R. diversifolius 

 is glandular, and was actually understood to be so both by Leighton 

 and Lindley, 1 need only refer to the ' Flora of Shropshire,' which is 

 not alluded to in the matter by Dr. B. Salter. Here, under R. dume- 

 torum, whose abundant glandulosity none will dispute, it is distinctly 

 stated : " Specimens of this plant, submitted to Professor Lindley, 

 were pronounced by him to be his R. diversifolius. Of similar spe- 

 cimens, Mr. Borrer says — ' R. dumetorum, W. 8f N.: I incline to 

 refer it to R. corylifolius, Sm., although, in some respects, it is more 

 like R. csesius.' "* Will any one be surprised, if, with these opi- 

 nions, and under these circumstances — having traced R. dumetorum 

 as a derivative from caesius — I should come to the same conclusion 

 with R. diversifolius, represented by Leighton, and thus tacitly ad- 

 mitted even by Mr. Borrer to be the same plant. For, in the follow- 

 ing paragraph, after stating that he had sent similar specimens, 

 though from a different locality, to Nees von Esenbeck, who had 

 named them R. dumetorum, /3. &c., Mr. Leighton goes on to say 

 that from the latter locality, specimens were forwarded to Mr. Borrer 

 with Esenbeck's remarks ; and " he also (that is Mr. Borrer) concurs 

 in naming them R. dumetorum, W. & N., and identifies them with 

 specimens rnarked by Lindley R. diversifolius, Lind. /" Now, what 

 can be possibly plainer than this ? As to the solitary specimen in 

 Mr. BoiTcr's herbarium, which it appears is non-glandular, and which 

 is rather cautiously said to be " as from the authentic bush, &c.," t 

 as if it was not absolutely certain, although taken from some bush in 



* Leighton's ' Flora of Shropshire,' p. 238. f Leighton, Ibid. 



Vol. II. z 



