626 



without this strongly corroborative fact, stamp it unequivocally for a 

 mule production, in which the features, sometimes of the one parent, 

 sometimes of the other, predominate. The L. stricta of Hornemann 

 I take to be our hybrid in one of its smaller-flowered phases, such as 

 I occasionally meet with at Gosport, and in which L. repens is domi- 

 nant over the commoner progenitor. This is referred by Koch* and 

 Benthamf to L. repens as a variety of that plant, but the concise de- 

 scription of the former author, given below, coincides better with our 

 English mule than the figure of Reichenbach, which is more highly 

 coloured in the yellow portion of the flower, and less distinctly 

 striated in the upper lip than any specimens from this quarter at least, 

 besides that the lobes of both lips are in that figure represented as 

 acute, whilst in our plant they are remarkably rounded and obtuse as 

 in the type. 



A degree of fragrance is ascribed to the flowers of L. repens, which 

 has been noticed by the earlier botanists as well as by those of our 

 own day, but beyond a certain herbaceous odour I could never per- 

 ceive any sweetness in the blossoms, even with a large bundle of the 

 plant before me for drawing up a description from, although a single 

 specimen has, from another party ignorant of the fact, elicited ex- 

 pressions of pleasure and surprise at the grateful smell diffused by it. 



N.B. — L. purpurea is to be seen occasionally on wall-tops and waste 

 ground, escaped from gardens, in several places of the island. I have 

 found it in such situations at Bonchurch and Yarmouth, and on the 

 sandy spit at Norton, Freshwater, but too sparingly to be admitted 

 with propriety to denizenship in our Flora. Being a native of cen- 

 tral and southern Italy it is not likely to gain a permanent footing in 

 this country, but L. supina, lately added to the British Flora, may 

 not unreasonably be looked for along the southern coast, as it is truly 

 indigenous on the opposite shores of France (I think at Cherbourg), 

 and abounds about Rouen and elsewhere in Normandy. The Cornish 

 stations lately discovered are in all likelihood really natural habitats. 



Liiiaria vulgaris. Everywhere common in hedges, borders of 

 fields, waste ground and by road-sides, particularly in light sandy 



* Rolling's ' Deutschlands Flora,' iv. s. 402. Eine andere Abart (L. striata) hat 

 bleichgelbliche Bluthen mit einer violett gestreiften Oberlippe. Diese ist die oben 

 angefiihrte Linaria stricta, Homem. Haf. 2, p. 577 Reichenb. Ic. v. p. 14 (tab. 

 423). See also Gadron, ' Flore de Lorraine,' iii. p. 146, L. striata /3. grandiflora. 



+ In De Cand. Prodrom. x. Scropbular. p. 278, B-eutham distinctly says that the 

 L. italica of England is a hybrid between L. vulgaris and L. stricta (probably a mis- 

 print for striata, that is L. repens), which has always been my own opinion. 



