655 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



June 2. — John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the chair. Donations to the library 

 were announced from the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, and Dr. Tilley. 

 Mr. W. Andrews, Secretary of the Natural-History Society of Dublin, presented an 

 interesting collection of Irish plants, comprising specimens of Arundo lapponica, Are- 

 naria ciliata, Lathyrus maritimus, Trichomanes speciosum, several varieties of Saxi- 

 fraga Geum, &c., many of them being from new localities. Specimens of Anemone 

 ranunculoides, found wild in a wood near Worksop, Nottinghamshire, were presented 

 by Mrs. Margaret Stovin. Mr. F. Bainbridge presented a specimen of Lecidea Wah- 

 lenbergii, Acharius, a lichen new to the British Flora.* 



Read, the continuation of a paper commenced at the last meeting, — "On the 

 Groups into which the British Fruticose Rubi are divisible,'' by Mr. Edwin Lees, 

 F.L.S., &c. Before the Rubi can be adequately understood so as to be reduced into 

 groups, their mode of growth must be fully investigated; and it will then perhaps be- 

 come evident what points, from their greater permanency, are to be relied upon for 

 general as well as specific characters. 



The author had already traced the mode of growth of the British fruticose Rubi, 

 in a paper read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. The general idea of the 

 biennial continuance of the Rubi is incorrect; all are triennial by the renewed growth 

 of smaller flowering branches from the barren stems, or the bases of the withered pa- 

 nicles of the second year, or by the barren stems shooting forlh a second crop of barren 

 stems, which flower the third year; and that often the existence of an individual bram- 

 ble, independently of fresh shoots from the root, is protracted to the fourth or fifth year. 



The consequence of this is, that no specific distinction whatever can be drawn from 

 the inflorescence, which may be long the second year, and is much shorter the third ; 

 while it often happens that when a barren stem becomes prostrate, the panicles of flow- 

 ers rising from the extreme end, are twice or thrice as long as those nearest the main 

 shrub. This fact of the extended growth of the Rubi has been lost sight of, and hence 

 puzzling productions have been considered as new species, just as the R. fastigiatus of 

 Weihe and Nees is but a form of R. plicatus, as is now admitted by Essenbeck him- 

 self, from its exhibiting a smaller growth of third year's flowers. 



Undoubtedly the barren stem off'ers the best, if not the only plan of discrimination 

 in subdividing the Rubi into groups, especially if we take into consideration, in com- 

 bination with it, the erect or arched mode of growth and continuance of vitality. The 

 leaves are so exceedingly variable, in shape, size and hoariness, as to be almost useless 

 in this respect. A table was appended to the paper, by which was seen at a glance 

 what the difl'erences really were by which groups could be defined ; and it would ap- 

 pear, in fact, that these resolve themselves almost entirely into the perfect smoothness, 

 glaucosity, or more or less of hairiness and glandulosity of the barren stems. 



Commencing then with Rubus caesius and ending with R. Idaeus, it will appear 

 that seven groups are easily separable from each other, and passing from one into the 

 other, in a very natural manner. These, at all events, may be considered the smallest 

 number of species into which the Rubi can be classed, without confounding really dif- 

 ferent things, while if we proceed further into minuter distinctions, these typical forms 

 will become groups, under which the various varieties, species, or sub-species of each, 

 will be referable. 



* Phytol. 616. 



