662 



bottom to top with its many-flowered, unilateral cymes or clusters 

 into one blooming raceme.* 



Calamintha Acinos (Thymus AcinosJ. In dry, open, chalky, gra- 

 velly or sandy fields, fallows, and stony, hilly places. In the Isle of 

 Wight, by no means uncommon. Near Ashey and Brading. Be- 

 tween Thorley and Shalcombe. Near Alum Bay. On Kennerley 

 Heath, and in sandy fields about Newchurch, Bordwood and Queen- 

 bower. Abundant in very high, chalky fields above Sandown Bay, 

 near the Culver Cliff. Fields near Bembridge Down ; Mr. W. W. 

 Saunders. About Carisbrook Castle and near Princeslade (Princelet) ; 

 Mr. W. D. Snooke in El. Vect. Frequent, I believe, throughout the 

 county. About Winchester, in fields towards Chilcombe abundantly, 

 and picked with white flowers. I have noticed it in a variety of other 

 places in the county, and believe it to be so generally diffused as to 

 render a list of stations unnecessary. Warnforcl; Rev. E. M. Sladen. 

 Andover ; Mr. Wm. Whale. The white-flowered variety, which I 

 have gathered in the sandy ground below Queenbower, in this island, 

 in some plenty, is a very pretty one, from the purity of the white 

 blossoms, unmixed with any trace of the usual purple spots. 



Clinopodium ( ' Clinopodium vulgare). In woods, thick- 

 ets, and bushy, hilly places, on banks, along hedges and borders of 

 fields on a dry gravelly or calcareous soil ; extremely common in 

 most parts of the county and Isle of Wight. Common about Ryde, 

 and abundant throughout the chalk districts both here and on the 

 mainland of Hants. The structure of the corolla is exactly that of C. 

 sylvatica, and the habit of the plant very similar. It may be doubted 

 nevertheless, how far it is advisable to " lump " together genera so 

 long recognized as Calamintha, Clinopodium and Melissa, as has been 

 done by Mr. Bentham, or even to keep the two former only united, as 

 we find in the Manual. When we have so extensive and truly natu- 

 ral an order to deal with as the Labiatse, we must be content with 

 very artificial characters in forming the genera, otherwise the latter 

 become unwieldy, and the determination of the species, unless by 

 very exactly drawn up sectional divisions, troublesome and difficult. 

 It were much to be wished that the mania for making new species, so 

 prevalent amongst botanists of the Reichenbach school, could be in- 

 duced rather to signalize itself in the construction of new genera, the 

 amusement would be much more harmless, and the honour to be 



* For a most interesting and faithful account of the habit of this plant and its 

 cultivation by Dr. T. Bell Salter, see 'Phytologist' ii. p. 171. 



