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dinate mark of distinction. Since L. Forsteri has not yet been detected 

 in Ireland, and there seems great reason for thinking that some form 

 of L. pilosa has been taken for it in Scotland, I may perhaps be doing 

 a service to Scotch and Irish botanists by pointing out the characters 

 of the former more in detail than has been done in the books most in 

 use as field manuals ; the more especially as I am unacquainted with 

 any good figure of this plant, the one in 'English Botany' being 

 wretchedly deficient, and the far superior drawing in Hooker and 

 Graves's continuation of the ' Flora Londinensis,' besides that that 

 sumptuous work is in still fewer hands than the other, depicts an ex- 

 treme narrow-leaved form of L. Forsteri, and not the ordinary or 

 normal state of the species, whilst the figures of the seeds and capsules 

 both of this and L. pilosa are defective representations of their kind. 

 L. Forsteri grows in precisely similar places, and often intermixed 

 with L. pilosa, but flowers perhaps rather later than it, or when the 

 latter commences to form capsules. The leaves in both are extremely 

 similar, forming dense tufts, narrower in general in L. Forsteri than in 

 L. pilosa, occasionally very much more so, at other times nearly as 

 wide, and equally hairy. The panicle of L. Forsteri is cymose, of 

 several compound, mostly erect, or rather patent or diverging branches, 

 but of which two or three are usually reflexed or divaricate, espe- 

 cially after flowering, and the base of the panicle is subtended by an 

 erect, sublinear bract, far narrower or less leaf-like than in L. pilosa, 

 whatever may be the breadth of the root-leaves themselves. In the 

 height of the stem, there is no constant difference between these plants. 

 Flowers paler in general than those of L. pilosa, the segments of the 

 perianth more finely taper-pointed or acuminate, very acute ; anthers 

 shorter than the perianth, about as long or rather longer than the 

 compressed, ascending filaments ; in L. pilosa the anther is above 

 twice the length of the greenish and flattish filament, which propor- 

 tions are tolerably constant within certain limits in each species. 

 Ovary more acutely trigonate and more gradually tapering into the 

 style than in L„ pilosa. Capsule reddish-brown and shining, acutely 

 triquetrous, the faces nearly plane, simply acute or acuminate, with 

 no obtuse and conical contraction at the summit, and (including the 

 hard, sharp, mucronate apex) about as long as the nearly erect peri- 

 anth-segments. In L. pilosa the capsule is broadly ovoid, trigonous, 

 obscurely three-lobed, with as many very blunt angles and convex 

 intermediate faces, visibly contracting above into the very rounded 

 and obtuse summit, of a subcorneal figure, sometimes minutely tipped 



