977 



guish them by technical language in books. Moreover, the Azoric 

 species proved decidedly more sensitive to frost than our native plant. 

 Thus fortified by facts, or visible and describable distinctions, I retain- 

 ed the Lysiraachia azorica as a genuine species in my own ' Catalogue 

 of Azorean Plants,' published in the ' London Journal of Botany.' 



Other facts, however, have more recently come under my observa- 

 tion, which throw considerable doubt on the propriety of my own 

 course, while they also account for the opposite view taken up by Seu- 

 bert, and explain the apparent inaccuracy of the figure in the * Botani- 

 cal Magazine.' In order to render the bearing of these latter facts 

 intelligible, it may be necessary first to mention the distinctions 

 observed between the plants of our native L. nemorum and those of 

 my own L. azorica, as they appeared in the cultivated examples. 



Lysimachia nemorum spreads closely over the ground, with length- 

 ened stems and ramifications, which acquire frequently a purple tinge 

 under exposure to the sun, and fi*eely throw out young roots at their 

 joints, by which they become tied to the earth, and draw fresh supplies 

 of food or moisture for continuing their elongating growth. The 

 leaves are opposite, that is, very rarely in whorls of three, and I have 

 never seen them in four. The veins or nerves are impressed like 

 channels on the upper surface of the leaves, which are rather acutely 

 pointed, and of a darkish green colour. The sepals are very narrow, 

 linear-lanceolate or almost subulate, and very acute. Other characters 

 need not here be adverted to. 



Lysimachia azorica, on the contrary, does not spread closely over 

 the ground. Its stems and ramifications are procumbent at the base 

 (except while young and short, when they are nearly erect) and then 

 bend upwards in an ascending direction ; throwing out few or no roots 

 fi'om those joints which do lie in contact with the ground, attaining 

 much less of length, and remaining usually quite pale. The leaves 

 are primarily opposite but frequently in whorls of three or four, pale 

 green in colour, and obtuse ; with their veins not channelled, but 

 rather prominent. The sepals are comparatively broad, lanceolate- 

 oblong or elliptic and obtuse. It was chiefly on the characters of a 

 procumbent stem and elliptic obtuse sepals that I relied for a book 

 distinction between the species. 



After I had been thus watching the two quasi-species under cultiva- 

 tion, and comparing dried'specimens, our Consul, Mr. Hunt, sent me 

 some living shrubs from the island of St. Michael's, one of the Azore 

 Group on which I had not landed, but in which the specimens seen 

 by Dr. Seubert, author of ' Flora Azorica,' had been collected. The 



