973 



stantly intermixed with the usual form of C. nigra: I have had many 

 opportunities of observing their habits and appearances. I may premise 

 that this supposed C. nigrescens is very unlike a radiate C. nigra 

 which I once found in Carmarthenshire, and Mr. Borrer, to whom I 

 showed my specimens last autumn, declared it not to be C. Jacea. It 

 differs from C. nigra in the following points : — 



The involucral appendages in C. nigra are pectinate in a pinnate, 

 in C. nigrescens rather in a palmate, manner. The leaves of C. 

 nigrescens are correctly described in the Manual as linear-lanceolate, 

 but as far as I have seen, the lower ones are scarcely ovate, but rather 

 ovate-lanceolate, sinuate dentate almost up to the flowers, while those 

 of C. nigra are often all entire, except the very lowest. The characters 

 from the pappus I fear will be found dubious, as I have now before me 

 seeds of C. nigra which would answer all the three descriptions in the 

 Manual, unless indeed that character refers only to the outermost 

 seeds in each head. The difference in habit between these two plants 

 is very striking; C. nigra is for the most part an erect slender- 

 stemmed plant, with rather sparse foliage ; the stem of C. nigrescens 

 is decumbent below, much shorter, thicker, and more leafy, and has 

 usually several leaves nearly close together immediately below the 

 flowers ; the heads, too, are larger, and I believe always radiate. The 

 specimen of C. nigra, &. radiata, to which I have referred, had quite 

 the habit and appearance of the normal C. nigra, not of C. nigrescens, 

 but having unfortunately been unable to preserve it when gathered, I 

 cannot speak to the form of the calyx appendages. 



Malva veriicillata. — I must beg to correct a slight inaccuracy in 

 the notice of this plant, both in the ' London Journal ' and in the 

 ' Phytologist,' viz., that "very few specimens have been found;" 

 when I first observed it, there were many hundreds of specimens, 

 scattered over three fields, though most abundant in one : it is true 

 that when Mr. Borrer accompanied me to the spot last autumn, w^e 

 could only procure five specimens, of which two were only seedlings, 

 but it has this year appeared again in considerable abundance ; I have 

 procured about one hundred specimens, besides leaving quite as many, 

 being anxious that the plant should not be exterminated. I have 

 found several specimens in an old quarry adjoining the field : these 

 are only an inch or two high, with solitary flowers, while some in rich 

 soil in my garden were upwards of three feet, and the flowers in dense 

 clusters. I cannot believe this plant to be either a variety or the type 

 of M. crispa : with the seeds of that plant I am unacquainted, but its 

 ramification is very different from that of M. verticillata ; when the 

 Vol. II. 6 f 



