160 



purple one. a. and /3. have much of the aspect, generally speaking, 

 of the suberect brambles; y. partakes of the appearance of R. disco- 

 lor, and £ approaches R. cordifolius. These varieties, although 

 anastomosing with each other in one or other of their characters, are 

 nevertheless capable of being clearly distinguished by others. 



In the present incipient state of our knowledge of this genus, 1 

 shall venture to give to the student a detailed description of these 

 varieties, although at the risk of being accounted tedious and guilty 

 of vain repetitions. And I am the rather led to adopt this course 

 from the difficulty there is very frequently in such a variable genus as 

 the present, of clearly comprehending what is intended in the usual 

 short characters, when considered apart from and without having the 

 actual specimens under view. 



* Green Groupe. 



Var. «. sublustris. Barren stem arching, nearly or quite round 

 and glabrous, green, and slightly tinged with reddish purple ; 

 prickles uniform in size, moderately abundant, slender, much 

 longer than their short base, somewhat scattered, generally 

 straight, or nearly so, sometimes a little decimate, or even 

 decurved, green, or if in the sun, reddish purple at the base, 

 yellow at the point ; leaves digitate, 5-nate, on stout petioles 

 pubescent with close-pressed scattered white shining hairs, 

 armed with short decurved not very numerous prickles; leaf- 

 lets coriaceous, plane, terminal one on a rather long stalk, 

 intermediate ones on short stalks not above |-th the length of 

 that of the terminal leaflet, lowermost quite sessile, overlap- 

 ping the intermediate pair, dark bright green and nearly gla- 

 brous, or with only a few scattered hairs above, under side 

 clothed with dense whitish shining hairs and a dense whitish 

 velvety tomentum, veins prominent, hairy, midrib armed with 

 a few weak hooked prickles ; terminal leaflet rotundato-cor- 

 date, acuminate, coarsely but very sharply and unequally 

 crenato-cuspidato-serrated, intermediate leaflets broadly ova- 

 to-oblong, lowermost rather small and oblong ; stipules lan- 

 ceolate, smooth or nearly so on both sides, hairy on the mar- 

 gins ; flowering stem roundish, very slightly angular, with 

 scattered whitish pubescence below, increasing upwards into 

 a short dense hoary close-pressed tomentum ; leaves 3-nate 

 below, upper ones large and simple, often lobed, not con- 

 tinued to the extremity of the panicle ; panicle compound, 



