499 



p.S. _ I beg leave to send two additional remarks, by way of post- 

 script to my notes on Ranunculus Lenormandi, which has been 

 brought before the readers of the ' Phytologist ' by Mr. Babington's 

 paper, of an earlier date than mine (Phytol. ii. 467) ; and which I did 

 not see before the 6th of March. When Mr. B. writes that " the first 

 notice of it as a native of Britain is in the ' Annals of Natural Histo- 

 ry,' xiv. 141," he must only intend to say the first notice of the name 

 " Lenormandi," — one of very recent origin. The plant itself had been 

 recorded as a native of Britain, both in his own Manual and in the 

 London Catalogue. 



Secondly. — I fear that the characters mentioned by Mr. Babington 

 will not be found sufficiently discriminative. But this point must be 

 determined by examination of the living plants. In specimens glued 

 to paper, as are most of those in my herbarium, it is not easy to de- 

 cide whether the stipules are a little more or less adnate; but in some 

 loose examples of Lenormandi I find them certainly adnate for one- 

 third to one-half of their length ; and, moreover, varying considerably 

 in breadth. Again, I cannot find much difference in the position of 

 the style, when fruits are compared together at equal stages of growth. 

 At a very early stage, the style is more distinctly terminal in both ; 

 but it is rendered apparently lateral, by the obliquity (or unequal en- 

 largement of the two sides) of the fruit in its advance towards maturity. 

 The question therefore arises, whether the alleged difference in the 

 position of the style has been discovered only by comparing the fruit 

 of Lenormandi in an earlier stage with that of hederaceus in a later 

 stage of development ? Half a dozen pods of the common garden 

 pea, at different ages between the flower and maturity, will illustrate 

 this change in the position of the style, by the unequal growth of two 

 sides of a fruit ; — allowance being made for the difference between a 

 roundish and single-seeded fruit, and the elongated pod of a pea. 



H. C. W. 



March 7, 1847. 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



March 6, 1846. —Edward Doubleday, Esq., V.P., F.L.S., in the 

 chair. 



Donations to the Library were announced from the American Phi- 

 losophical Society, Mr. G. Rich and Mr. W. Pamplin. Dr. Gilbert 

 M'Nab presented some plants from Jamaica. 



