14 



end. The paramount importance of attention to " the limits within 

 which a species may vary," has been most ably argued by the Rev. 

 Professor Henslow in 'The Magazine of Zoology and Botany' for 

 August, 1836, and ' The Magazine of Natural History,' iii. 406; and 

 unless, as recommended in those valuable communications, a series 

 of experiments and observations be instituted and carefully conduct- 

 ed, having for their express object the elucidation of this interesting, 

 but at present most unsettled question ; and unless, in addition to di- 

 rect experiment, all the observed variations from what are considered 

 the normal forms of plants, with the circumstances accompanying 

 such variations, be carefully and precisely recorded ; — we fear it will 

 be long ere an approximation to the truth will have been attained. 

 Our pages will ever be open to the reception of the results of such 

 investigations ; and it will give us great pleasure if by our means one 

 single fact should be added to the existing stores of botanical know- 

 ledge, which may tend, however remotely, to the attainment of that 

 important desideratum — the more exact determination of species. 



It is not so easy to make suitable quotations from the pages of a 

 Flora as from those of a connected narrative, whether in poetry or 

 prose, and the illustrative observations contained in the work before us 

 are all so valuable, that we find some difficulty in determining which 

 to select : we must, however, lay before our readers some few speci- 

 mens of the highly interesting contents of the book, at the same time 

 taking the liberty to introduce occasional remarks on such of the plants 

 of Shropshire as have fallen under our own observation in other parts 

 of the country. 



Veronica scutellata, Linn. " A variety with the whole herbage 

 hairy occurs on some boggy ground north of Bomere Pool, and at the 

 east end of Blackmere." As Mr. Leighton does not mention the co- 

 lour of the flowers of this variety, we suppose it to be the same as that 

 of the plant in its usual state. Several years ago we found, in some 

 boggy gi'ound near Bloxwich, in Staffordshire, two specimens of what 

 appears to be a weak, prostrate variety of this species, with the leaves 

 short, ovate-lanceolate and rather hairy, and the flowers blue : the 

 plants, except in the colour of their flowers, closely resembling the 

 Ver. parmularia, of Poit. et Turp. ' Fl. Paris.' tab. 14, which is Ver. 

 scutellata /3 of ' Eng. Fl.' i. 21. 



Veronica polita, Fries, the Ver. agrestis of ' Eng. Bot.' 783, may 

 readily be distinguished from that species by the bluish green hue and 

 less succulent appearance of the whole plant, in which we have never 



