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on this very account, not being satisfied it could rightly belong to 

 affinis, whose barren stem is very smooth.* At all events, this am- 

 plijicate Rubus is very common, especially in hilly thickets ; I have 

 it from various counties, and observed it last summer in North Wales 

 also. But if incongruous forms are not to be allocated together, 

 under one name, then surely I may be allowed to urge that whatever 

 becomes of my amplificate bramble, the &. ajffitiis of Leighton, and 

 which Dr. Bell Salter, I presume, understands by his var. of Weihe 

 and Nees, " an exceedingly common plant," the second form of 

 rhamnifolius cannot be joined to it, or the typical affinis. It is to be 

 observed, that warm exposed situations, with some moisture super- 

 added, bring out brambles to their utmost dilatation, while every- 

 body knows that pent up in a dark close thicket or grove they be- 

 come starved changelings. Now, this " second form of rhamnifolius," 

 vai-yinginto y. affinis, and equivalent to R. corylifoUus^ Sm., for which I 

 proposed the name of suhlustris in Cat. of Bot. Soc, exhibits, in 

 the fullest exposure to light and in moist localities — as I have wit- 

 nessed on the banks of the Mellte, in South Wales — a barren stem 

 differing only from that of R. caesius in its much greater size and 

 thickness, with an obvious bloom, and with short, straight, purple 

 prickles dispersed on every side of the round stem. This appears to 

 me quite decisive of the matter, for it is really ccesius on a grand 

 scale, but is quite different from R. amplificatus, the /3, ajfinis of 

 Leighton, of which I have seen numbers of growing specimens, the 

 barren stem always angular, without bloom, and the prickles not dis- 

 persed irregularly, but confined to the angles. 



I have restricted myself, in this paper, to those points that Dr. 

 Bell Salter has either denied, or considered I was mistaken in. The 

 matter between us is purely one of observation, which dried speci- 

 mens are scarcely adequate to decide. To swim out boldly into the 

 stream of observation, we must throw aside the corks of mere opi- 

 nion, founded on, perhaps, a badly preserved specimen ; and Mr. 

 Leighton's enumeration of the species of Rubi, in his ' Flora of 

 Shropshire,' abundantly shows that, like the painter's picture placed 

 for judgment in the market-place, we may find no want of critics, 

 and a variety of opinions, but an unpleasant uncertainty in reach- 

 ing a sound conclusion. 



* Weihe and Nees describe the stem of their iJ. ft^m's as " glabenimus ;'' but 

 Leighton says, iu his description of /3. " hairy," which doubtless it is, and this is a 

 discrepancy which renders it very inconvenient to combine the two. 



