576 



mollis (Curt. Bot. Mag. L. tab. 2422, certainly only a variety, and 

 that a very slight one. P. azurea, of Besser's ' Enumeratio Planta- 

 rum Volkyniae,' &c., and of the 'Primitiae Florae Galliciee' (Bessera 

 azuiea, Schult.), it would be no difficult undertaking to match exactly 

 from the Hampshire woods. Bertoloni in Fl. Italica has very judi- 

 ciously reduced these and some other supposed species to their true 

 station as varieties of P. angustifolia, which presents infinite grada- 

 tions in the breadth and narrowness of the leaves, size and intensity 

 of colour in the flowers, and in the pale nebulous spots on the foliage, 

 which are sometimes very large, confluent, and cover nearly the entire 

 disk of the leaf, at other times small, few and distinct, more rarely 

 wholly absent. The shortly pedicellate flowers in a terminal leafy 

 cluster of about three primary divisions, make the inflorescence in its 

 early stage appear capitate, but in more advanced growth it becomes 

 spreading and subpaniculate, the clusters a little recurved. The 

 root-leaves increase very greatly in size after the flowers are past, and 

 are conspicuous the winter through in the damp, clayey woods, but 

 give place to fresh ones in the spring. 



XPulmonaria virginica. In the ruins of an old castle near Netley 

 Abbey, far from any house, and apparently wild ; Rev. Norton 

 Nicholls in Bot. Guide ! In a wood through which the road passes, 

 about two miles and a half from Newport, Isle of Wight, to Ryde, as 

 common as Scilla nutans in our woods ; Mr. Griffith in Bot. Guide. 

 From the former of these stations I have seen specimens in the Bank- 

 sian herbarium, now in the British Museum, but I feel persuaded the 

 second is an error, and that it may be easily traced to the authors of 

 the 'Botanist's Guide' inadvertently subjoining the then quite recent 

 detection of P. angustifolia in this island by Mr. Griffith in 1804, to 

 their announcement of the American species as having been found 

 near Southampton. I have nevertheless carefully searched the woods 

 betwixt Newport and Ryde on the chance, small as it was, of finding 

 that foreign species naturalized therein, seeing it did once occur in 

 the county, although in a very suspicious locality. The wood in 

 question I imagine to be Combley Great Wood, as through that and 

 Firestone Copse the old road between Newport and Ryde appears 

 not many years since to have passed. On the present line there is 

 no wood through which it can run within the alleged distance of two 

 miles and a half from Newport. In the present case there seems to 

 be ground for acquitting Mr. Griffith of the commission of a blunder, 

 although in other instances he incurs the imputation of being a care- 

 less or inaccurate observer. 



