805 



under tliat nauK!, but only a vari(;ty of II. mnrorinn. II. pulnionari- 

 ura appears a diflercnt species, and more like "II. nigresccns." 



IIewktt C. Watscjn. 



Art. CLXXXIL— Varieties. 



3J)}). Note on Inula Heleuiiim and Ulex nanus. Not knowing 

 where to address Mr. Habington at this time, 1 send the enclosed to 

 you, that it may meet his eye through tlie medium of * The Piiytolo- 

 gist,' if you deem it worthy a place in that journal. In conformity 

 with the concluding ])aragra])h of the Preface to Mr. Babington's 

 ' Manual of British Botany,' 1 have to mention that during the late 

 suunner I found Inula llelenium growing abundantly in a moist m(;a- 

 dow upon Newtown farm, in the neighbourhood of Lymiugton, Hants. 

 Sir W. J. Hooker, in the last edition of his * British Flora,' descrilnjs 

 the flower as " larger, terminal, solitary." In the Manual it is said, 

 "heads few together or solitary." The plants found h>y me had gene- 

 rally four heads, and were consequently very unlike the figure in 

 ' English Botany : ' only one had so few as three. Whether any of 

 the heads proved abortive I cannot say, the cattle having trodden 

 them down before more than one blossom had opened. While upon 

 Beaulieu heath in September, which is covered with furze and differ- 

 ent species of heath, the former caught my attention from the circum- 

 stance that in very few spots only blossoms appeared ; these I was 

 disposed to refer to Ulex nanus, as they bore a striking reseinblance 

 to the figure of that species in ' English liotany.' On further obser- 

 vation, however, the flowers were found only upon the trailing shoots 

 of such plants as had been cut down the ])receding winter, rarely did 

 a single .shoot present a more erect position. The old entire buslies 

 had not the least appearance of flowers upon them. Upon my return 

 to Bath about the end of the month, I found the open part of the fo- 

 rest, on the Salisbury side of Lyndhurst, covered with furze every- 

 where in blossom, being so high and erect in many places as to re- 

 present Mr. Babington's var. &. major of Ulex nanus, the blossonis 

 being twice as large as those upon Beaulieu heath. 1 had no oj)por- 

 tunity of minutely examining the calyx, bracts or spines in either 

 case. These facts, and Mr. Babington's not ado]jting specific cha- 

 racters from the teeth of the calyx, as Sir James Suiith has done in 

 ' English Botany,' and Sir W. J. Hooker in his ' British Flora,' but 

 rather from the more or less shaggy surface of that organ, the ovate. 



