462 PONDWEEDS. \_March, 



ceived by British botanists as an adequate representative of this 

 species. The verbal description in Withering, p. 214, does not 

 agree well with the figure so often quoted, and he suspects that 

 there may be two species under one name, like two faces under 

 one hood, viz. Ray's figure representing one, and the ' Flora 

 Danica,' 222, representing another. 



The accurate Lightfoot, after quoting the figure of P. gra- 

 mineus in Fl. Dan. 222, with approbation, quotes Ray's, or 

 rather Dillenius's, with the remark, "Non bene, quoniam sine 

 stipulis" (not good, being without stipules), and adds that it agrees 

 better with P. compressus, Loesel's Pruss. Flora, p. 206, fig. 66. 

 This author gives good distinctive characters between P. com- 

 pressus and P. gramineus, viz. that in the former the leaves are 

 four or five times longer than the stipules, and that the spike 

 produces only six small flowers. In P. gramineus the leaves are 

 pointed, and about twice the length of the stipules, which are 

 much larger than on the preceding, and the spike has fifteen or 

 twenty flowers. It is to be hoped or wished that the ingenious 

 author of the ' Flora Scotica ' was describing plants or specimens, 

 and not figures, when he drew up these admirable, plain, dis- 

 tinctive characters. 



Sir J. Smith's ' English Flora ^ followed Withering's third and 

 best edition at an interval of twenty-eight years; and in this ex- 

 cellent work there are thirteen species described, and five of 

 these are of the grass-leaved, and eight of the broad-leaved kinds. 

 Of the latter, P. fiuitans (P. rufescens), P. heterophyllus, and P. 

 lanceolatus, were new to the British flora, that is, had not pre- 

 viously appeared in any list of British plants. 



There cannot be much diversity of opinion about Smith's spe- 

 cies or those comprehended in his work, for he quotes ' English 

 Botany,' the figures of which must necessarily agree with his 

 descriptions j he also quotes the ' Flora Danica,' Curtis's ' Flora 

 Londiniensis,' Loesel, Lobel, Gerard, etc. 



P. compressus, Smith, is the same in Linnseus, the figures are 

 Eng. Bot. 418, Fl. Dan. 203. About this there cannot be much 

 doubt. The only figure quoted for P. cuspidatus, Schrader, is 

 Loesel, 206, t. 66. Is this P. acutifolius of Link ? 



P. gramineus, it is to be feared, does not always in England 

 represent the same plant ; several Continental authorities give 

 this name to another plant. Smith's description and reference 



