55 



flowers are often very large and specious. The garden seedling pre- 

 cisely resembled wild hedge plants. I should remark that I have a 

 specimen of this in my herbarium named by Dr. Lindley as " perhaps 

 R. affinis, W. fy iV.", and it is y. affinis of Leighton's ' Flora of Shrop- 

 shire.' All these names are truly puzzling enough to a student, and 

 here the difficulty lies, but the plant remains the same, distinct 

 enough to be known, if botanists would pore less over mouldy speci- 

 mens, and look more to the growing plants in copse or hedge. 



R. hystrix, W. & N. — Of all the glandulose Rubi, and their name 

 is legion, this may be most certainly distinguished, as it is impossible 

 to mistake its deeply jagged elliptical leaflets. It is also a very com- 

 mon plant. Nevertheless, Mr. Babington calls it radula, but I can- 

 not but prefer the former name, as our plant agrees so closely with the 

 plate of hystrix in Rub. Germ. Mr. Jordan stated his garden seed- 

 ling to agree with its wild parent, and the only difference appeared 

 to me to be the somewhat smaller panicle. 



R. fruticosus, Auct. — This common bramble was the only one that 

 exhibited any symptoms of variation. It was three years old, yet ex- 

 hibited no signs of flowering, though it had grown up pretty high. 

 Being in the shade, the leaves were green on both sides, so that the 

 first aspect of the plant was different to the usual appearance of 

 fruticosus. I have, however, seen wild specimens in dark spots very 

 similar, and indeed, in shady places, fruticosus, as I have noted, will 

 send forth barren shoots two years successively, without flowering. 



iVs Mr. Jordan has further experiments in hand, I only now re- 

 port progress as data for subsequent reasoning, and as proving that 

 all is not barren of result even among brambles — "ferat et rubus asper 

 amomum."* 



Edwin Lees. 



Cedar Terrace, Berwick, Worcester, 

 February 2, 1848. 



Still "Further Remarks'''' on Viola Jlavicomis, in reference to those 

 of Mr. Forster. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 



Mr. Forster has done me the honour to notice (Phytol. iii. 31) 

 a question which I found occasion to address to him, while defend- 

 ing my own views about Smith's Viola flavicornis, &c, which that 

 gentleman had opposed in the ' Phytologist.' If the reply had been 



* Virgil, Ec. iii. 



