485 



it is rather an extreme form in the length and narrowness of 

 its leaves. 

 3. Under " V. canina {L.) " of his Manual Mr. Babington has united 

 (confused, I should rather say) small specimens of the " First 

 species" with the broader or more cordate-leaved forms of 

 the " Second species " above indicated. I am perfectly cer- 

 tain, after several years' observation and cultivation of the 

 plants, that the confusion here noted does occur in the 

 ' Manual of British Botany.' But I cannot confidently assert 

 that only two species of this group are to be found in Eng- 

 land : it may be that three do exist with us ; although, as 

 natural species, they will still not correspond with the three 

 book species of the Manual. 

 Mentha rotundifolia (Linn.). Mr. E. G. Varenne sends some spe- 

 cimens thus labelled, from a ditch, Messing, Essex. I should myself 

 have labelled them, not without some degree of doubt, as M. sylves- 

 tris. They show one of those intermediate forms which render abso- 

 lute distinction so difficult between the two species mentioned, and 

 which have induced some botanists to suspect "that they may be 

 states of one and the same species," as recently remarked (Phytol. iii. 

 440) by Dr. Bromfield. As usual with the specimens from Mr. 

 Varenne, they are well dried and well labelled, exactly what labels 

 and specimens should be when sent to the Botanical Society for dis- 

 tribution. And the same compliment might be truthfully extended to 

 those of Mr. Taylor, Mr. Salmon, Mr. Barham, and, indeed, many 

 other members now. 



Tormentilla reptans ? I should be glad to have the opinion of 

 botanists respecting the correctness of this name. During several 

 years I have examined the wild plants of Potentilla reptans and Tor- 

 mentilla officinalis, under various conditions of soil and situation, in 

 the vain hope of satisfactorily identifying the Tormentilla reptans 

 with one or other of them. I can still reach only the apparent con- 

 clusion, that varieties of each may pass for T. reptans ; being those 

 intended under the names of "nemoralis" and " pseudo-nemoralis " 

 in the * London Catalogue,' under the genus Potentilla. I consider 

 the specimens now sent out (if not a distinct species, which seems less 

 probable) to be a variety of Potentilla Tormentilla (Tormentilla offi- 

 cinalis), although the flowers are sometimes five-petalled, and the 

 stems somewhat creeping. I dried forty specimens, the whole of 

 them from one plant, and therefore the radical leaves are wanting on 

 nearly all of them. 



