484 



Cerastium nigrescens (Edraondst.). Here, again, I distribute gar- 

 den-grown specimens, raised from seeds of the Shetland plant. In 

 this case I do so, because the chance of obtaining wild examples from 

 the single and remote locality on record, is very slight. These gar- 

 den specimens still closely resemble the wild plant of Shetland, in 

 their almost orbicular leaves and their dark tint; but I have seen a 

 plant which goes far to connect the C. nigrescens of Shetland with 

 the C. latifolium of the Scottish Highlands ; and which had sprung 

 up in my garden, in a situation where it might have been the offspring 

 of either, and 1 cannot even guess of which of them satisfactorily. 



Viola Jlavicornis (Sm. Herb.). Mr. Sansom has again sent a sup- 

 ply of this Viola from New Brighton, on the coast of Cheshire ; and 

 I would refer to the remarks of last year, in regard to the specimens 

 from that locality, in Phytol. iii. 47. Mr. Varenne also sends the 

 same species (as it appears to me) labelled " Viola lactea, Sm." from 

 Tiptree Heath, Essex. And other examples from myself, well cor- 

 responding with those from Essex, will be found accompanying those 

 from Mr. Sansom and Mr. Varenne, for sake of comparison. My 

 own labels bear a reference to the ' Phytologist ' of 1849, instead of 

 locality ; the specimens being plants from my garden, which had 

 sprung self-sown about wild roots transplanted into the garden. I 

 have labelled them " Surrey Violet," because that name has been 

 used by me repeatedly in the ' Phytologist.' The late Mr. Forster re- 

 ferred the " Surrey Violet" to Smith's V. lactea; and I quite concur 

 in regarding it as identical with the species so named in Smith's own 

 herbarium. Still, it appears to be exactly the same thing with Rei- 

 chenbach's 4501 (ericetorum, lucorum, sabulosa), to which (in the 

 form or variety sabulosa) Reichenbach himself referred Smith's V. 

 flavicornis. The two species which we possess in England are given 

 under three names in Babington's Manual, but I think that the fol- 

 lowing is the solution of their difficulty ; that is, a solution from 

 Nature, not from books. 



1. First species, V. sylvatica (Bab. Man.), is the ordinary hedge- 



bank and coppice plant, called V. canina by ninety-nine in 

 the hundred English botanists, including Smith, Hooker, &c. 



2. Second species, V. lactea (Sm. Herb.), is the " Surrey Violet " 



above mentioned, and the same with Mr. Varenne's plant 

 from Tiptree Heath. Nor can I see how to. distinguish it 

 specifically from Mr. Sansom's Cheshire specimens. If the 

 plant figured in 'English Botany,' as V. lactea, be the same 

 species with the specimens preserved in Smith's herbarium, 



