934 



Art. CCXI. — Varieties. 



461. Note on Hieraciiim maculatum. In your last number (Phy- 

 tol. 804) Mr. Watson alludes to the luxuriant specimens of Hieracium 

 maculatum in Smith's herbarium as being the effect of cultivation ; I 

 have several specimens of the plant collected from the top of the wall 

 of our yard, which are equal to the largest size mentioned in 'English 

 Flora.' There has been a good crop of them every summer, and the 

 general height is from two to three feet. I have not seen any under 

 that size when full grown, except some plants that have vegetated in 

 the joints of the stones on the face of the wall, where there was not 

 enough soil to nourish them, and consequently their smaller size may 

 be easily ascribed to starvation. I gathered some specimens from the 

 joints full two feet high ; they had in general from five to seven leaves 

 on the stem before they branched ; the flowers numbered from about 

 eighteen or twenty to nearly forty in some of the largest plants, be- 

 sides numbers of buds not much larger than large pin-heads. The 

 soil in which they grew consisted chiefly of decayed mortar. The 

 wall in question is exposed to the full force of the summer's sun for 

 the whole day, so that the plant must be able to grow in extremely 

 dry situations, since it grew so luxuriantly there. I think that a great 

 many discrepancies in statements of the mode of flowering, and also 

 of the number of flowers, arise fi-om not taking notice at what period 

 the specimens described are gathered. I think if the state of the cen- 

 tral flower w^ere mentioned, in connexion with the number of flowers, 

 it would be much more exact. I have generally found that when the 

 central flower was fully expanded, the flowers and buds were gene- 

 rally about twenty in number ; when the central flower had its seeds 

 about ripe, as shown by the white down being conspicuous, there 

 were from twenty-four to thirty; when the central flower had dispersed 

 its seeds, they ranged nearer forty. The radical leaves were all de- 

 cayed at the time the plant was in flower ; but though withered, they 

 were easily seen to accord with the description in ' English Flora.' 

 The only discrepancy exhibited was in the arrangement of the floral 

 branches. Smith says " stem cymose^'' " flower-stalks — form an ir- 

 reo-ular, sometimes compound, cymose panicle ; " in the specimens I 

 examined there was not one truly cymose, as explained in his ' Intro- 

 duction,' where he defines a cyme — " its common stalks all spring 

 from one centre," — but rather according with his description of H. 



