359 



seem to have been unaware of the plant of Schleicher and Smith on their 

 parts, and no "leucostachys" occurs even as a synonym in the Ger- 

 man work. Mr. Borrer next appears upon the scene, and in Eng. 

 Bot. Supp. 2631, under the name leucostachys, really figures and 

 describes R. vestitus of the German Rubi. In the third edition of 

 Hooker's ' British Flora,' where the brambles are ably marshalled by 

 Mr. Borrer, he describes leucostachys as from Eng. Bot. Supp., but 

 gives a var. ft. which he identifies with Dr. Lindley's diversifolius. 

 No reference is made to the German Rubi by Mr. Borrer as to their 

 vestitus. Professor Lindley having in the first edition of his Synopsis 

 described both leucostachys and diversifolius, but no vestitus, now in 

 his second edition continues them, and having certainly (as shown by 

 Leighton's specimens and my own) our present bramble in view as 

 leucostachys, blames Mr. Borrer for uniting diversifolius with it, and 

 says that the latter "is surely a hundred times more different than 

 leucostachys from fruticosus." This renders it clear that Lindley's 

 leucostachys was no variety of vestitus. 



Dr. Bell Salter (Phytol. ii. 105) has the merit of clearing up the 

 obscurity as far as R. diversifolius of Lindley is concerned, by show- 

 ing that Mr. Borrer's specimen of it, " had from Dr. Lindley's own 

 plant in the Hort. Soc. Gardens," is truly R. vestitus. But Dr. Bell 

 Salter makes no allusion to Lindley's " leucostachys," as being diffe- 

 rent to the leucostachys he himself had in view as " one of the com- 

 monest species about Selborne." It is also remarkable, if his "nitidus" 

 be really the same as Lindley's " leucostachys," the plant now under 

 review, that he lauds Dr. Lindley's description of nitidus as applicable 

 to it in his first edition, but says in his second " he confounds it with 

 R. plicatus under the misnomer of R. affinis." This seems very con- 

 fusing, and it is scarcely possible that the same plant should be men- 

 tioned by Lindley under two different names. In fact, he refers the 

 plant of which Leighton and myself have specimens as "the jagged- 

 leaved form of R. fruticosus," and compares it on this account with 

 the similar character of rudis, which is a very just comparison. 

 These jagged leaflets, a character generally perceptible, are men- 

 tioned by Leighton in the Fl. Shrops., but are not alluded to in Dr. 

 Bell Salter's description of his nitidus. I have ascertained from an in- 

 spection of the Smithian herbarium, that the R. plicatus of ' English 

 Flora,' " common in hedges in Shropshire," and sent from thence by 

 Mr. Williams, is really this species, which Mr. Leighton seems not to 

 have been aware of; and in his description Sir J. E. Smith very cor- 

 rectly notices the leaflets as " acute or pointed, coriaceous, more or 



