41 



impossible for any contributor to misunderstand the direction about 

 placing on his labels the corresponding No. of the species from the 

 Catalogue, the omission can be ascribed only to a negligent (not to 

 say, a selfish) disregard of the trouble and loss of time thereby caused 

 to other parties, who give their unpaid services to the Society, and 

 thus indirectly to the faulty contributor also. I trust that by thus 

 openly calling the attention of contributors to the faults of their selec- 

 tions, their specimens, or their labels, such faults may be less and less 

 frequently committed, each succeeding year. And I may repeat that, 

 notwithstanding the destruction of so many defective specimens this 

 winter, there still remains an ample supply, most of which are truly of 

 very high quality. Many of these, indeed, have been so well selected, 

 and so well dried, that they render me quite ashamed of things which 

 I have dried for my own herbarium, or contributed to the Society, at 

 no very distant date. 



But I have already trespassed too far from the more immediate ob- 

 ject of this communication, which is that of giving some explanations 

 concerning any novelties, remarkable varieties, or doubtfully named 

 plants, which the members may find in their parcels sent from the 

 Society in 1848. 



A new edition of the ' London Catalogue of British Plants,' having 

 been published at the commencement of the present winter, almost 

 everything and anything, hitherto ascertained to be British, can be 

 applied for in the usual manner by members. Under the head of 

 " Novelties," we class those plants which are not enumeiated in the 

 ' London Catalogue ; ' and such plants are distributed to the members, 

 as far as specimens thereof can be obtained, whether asked for or not ; 

 since, at the time of sending up their lists of desiderata, several mem- 

 bers may still be unaware of the British discovery of those plants. It 

 was hardly to be expected that anything could come under the cate- 

 gory of " Novelties," so immediately after publication of the new Cata- 

 logue ; and yet there are three plants with apparent claims to be so 

 designated and placed. In addition, there are some varieties which 

 illustrate or throw light upon certain contested points in British 

 botany. And there are also other specimens which cannot be label- 

 led with sufficient certainty, and to which the attention of the recipi- 

 ents may be advantageously or warningly directed. 



Udora verticillata (Aut.). — This peculiarly interesting discovery 

 has been already made known to readers of the ' Phytologist ' 

 (see Phytol. ii. 1050) ; and some additional explanations were 

 given in the Preface for the same volume, stitched in the No. for 



