600 



the former. The very pale, cream-coloured or even milk-white 

 flowers are not discriminative of O. Picridis, being found, as before 

 remarked, in O. minor occasionally ; but the greater curvature of the 

 corolla, at its posterior extremity, in O. minor, even in the upper 

 flowers, before the swelling of the ovary could possibly influence the 

 degree of flexion, seems a good distinction, though a mark not very 

 available in description, since one of comparison merely. I cannot 

 say that I perceive the difference Mr. Babington speaks of in the form 

 of the sepals, which varies extremely in both these species, but so far 

 as I have yet examined the two together, the sepals of O. Picridis are 

 much longer than in O. minor, fully equalling, or even a little exceed- 

 ing the entire length of the perfectly expanded corolla, whereas in O. 

 minor the sepals do not reach beyond the tube of the corolla, which 

 is, I think, also smaller than in the O. Picridis. The want of the 

 notch or sinus in the upper lip of the latter is a nice character, about 

 which it is not always very easy to satisfy oneself, for this part of the 

 corolla is folded anteriorly in the centre, so as to have all the appear- 

 ance of being two-lobed, and a shallow emargination does appear to 

 me often to exist, which emargination is itself very variable in degree 

 on the flowers of O. minor. Again, I find, both on a former and re- 

 cent examination, that in this island the stamens of O. minor are 

 quite as hairy at their base within, as are those of our new plant — 

 that is to say, very villous in each species. In O. minor the style is 

 with us as it should be, very neai'ly glabrous, and that of O. Picridis 

 hairy (mostly in front) along its whole length, and towards the sum- 

 mit all around its circumference, but as if to nullify the value of this 

 apparently good distinction, the careful and accurate Bertoloni, whose 

 description of O. Picridis is excellent, writes, " Stylus quoque gla- 

 berrimus !" Without by any means intending to affirm that O. minor 

 and O. Picridis are varieties of the same plant, I cannot help believ- 

 ing that the European species of this genus have been greatly over- 

 multiplied, and that for want of better discriminating marks we have 

 been content to adopt for characters in framing our specific formulas, 

 one of the most confessedly variable conditions of vegetable organi- 

 zations, the smoothness or hairiness of particular parts. A tolerable 

 degree of constancy in this respect amongst the real or pretended 

 species of Orobanche, affords plausible argument for the derivation of 

 distinctive characters from attributes thought usually too mutable to 

 be relied on in most other cases. Bertoloni himself (one not much 

 addicted to " splitting") describes thirty Oiobanches in Italy,* yet 



* Fl. Ital., vol. vi. 



