399 



is partially right, as he considers Smith's plants to be identical with 

 Mr. Borrer's R. plicatus, E. B. Supp. 2714, which he also refers to 

 affinis. I can see no reason for believing, with Dr. Bell Salter (Phy- 

 tol. ii. 101), that Smith drew up his description of nitidus from "ano- 

 ther species, R. cordifolius," as he calls it " a slender straggling 

 plant," which can scarcely be said of well-grown plants of cordifolius, 

 and he refers, besides, distinctly to Williams's specimen, which is in- 

 dubitably R. plicatus. 



I shall now glance for a moment at the R. affinis of Smith's ' Eng- 

 lish Flora,' and the specimens he refers to in confirmation of it. Mr. 

 E. Forster is the authority for the specimens : one from " a lane at 

 Hatfield, Sussex," and " also in Epping Forest." The identical spe- 

 cimen from Hatfield still exists in the Smithian herbarium, but 

 strange to say, I find it to be a variety of Lindley's leucostachys. with 

 a hairy barren stem, and therefore not essentially different from 

 Smith's plicatus (not of W. & N.), for which I have proposed the 

 name of Lindleianus. Indeed, part of Smith's description would suit 

 very well for the latter, where he mentions its " densely downy pani- 

 cle," and "panicle more or less compound and corymbose, apparently 

 somewhat glutinous, but not evidently glandular, nor at all bristly." 

 Smith, however, seems to have been dubious as to this bramble ; for 

 under Mr. Forster's name " R. affinis ?" is written " I think so, J. E. 

 S. ;" and in the 'English Flora' he observes that " the species re- 

 quires further investigation." It is remarkable that the specimen 

 from Epping Forest, which also seems to be a small form of Lindlei- 

 anus, was sent by Mr. Forster ticketed " nitidus," but Sir J. E. Smith 

 writes beneath, "rather affinis, J. E. S.," so that the affinis of 'Eng- 

 lish Flora ' is but the leucostachys of Lindley, and essentially the 

 same as Smith's plicatus, which I have shown to be not the plicatus 

 of the ' Rubi Germanici.' There is still another specimen marked 

 "nitidus" by its collector, in the Smithian herbarium, and noted as 

 sent from Esher, Surrey, by " E. F." I presume Edward Forster, 

 Esq., now one of the Vice-Presidents of the Linn. Soc, and this is 

 certainly the leucostachys of Lindley, Leighton and myself, which 

 we all erred in so naming, while Smith and Bicheno were also incor- 

 rect in referring it to plicatus and affinis. Indeed, to this last-men- 

 tioned specimen Smith has very dubiously assigned the name 

 "affinis ?? — J. E. S." The same spell of misapprehension appears to 

 have infected every botanist touching upon this unfortunate bramble ; 

 for Mr. Borrer, in the third edition of Hooker's " British Flora,' ac- 

 tually refers the R. affinis of Smith's ' English Flora,' described from 



