182 Mr. J. Miers on the genus Lycium. 



My sole object in the present communication being to vindi- 

 cate Mr. Hancock from the charges of error brought against 

 him, which I trust I have now done satisfactorily, I shall leave 

 the discussion of controverted points to some future opportunity. 



I am, Gentlemen, 



Your obedient servant, 



Joshua Alder. 

 Nevvcnstk'-upon-Tyne, 19th August 1854. 



XX. — On the Genus Lycium. By John Miers, Esq., 

 F.R.S., F.L.S. &c. 



[Continued from p. 141.] 



2. Mesocope. Corolla infundibuliformis, limbi laciniis dimidium 

 tubi superantibus. sed ejus longitudinem non excedentibus. 



A. Gerontoge^e. 

 * Stamina Icevia. Sp. 39 ad 41. 



39. Lycium Barbarum, Linn, ex parte, non aliorum ; Dunal in 

 DC. Prodr. xiii. 511, cum synonymiis variis ibi relatis. — In 

 Persia Australi, Scinde et Afghanistan. — v. s. in herb. Hook. 

 Abouschir (Aucher Eloy, n. 5037).— Dalechi, distr. Abouschir 

 (Kotschy, n. 166).— Afghanistan {Griffiths, n. 670 et 672). 

 — Scinde, Kurdigass (Dr. Stocks, n. 995). 



This species was well distinguished by Linnseus, though con- 

 founded by other botanists and horticulturalists with L. vulgare 

 and L. Europceum, from which it is marked by very peculiar 

 characters. It is very spinose, with flexuose, knotty, crooked 

 branches, its splitting bark being of a glaucous whitish or brown- 

 ish hue j the nodes are large and very prominent, often woolly : 

 the leaves, three to five in each axillary fascicle, are linear, obtuse, 

 spathulate at base, diminishing into a short slender petiole ; they 

 are 5 to 10 lines long and 1 to 1^ line broad; three to five 

 flowers spring out of each fascicle ; the peduncle is very slender, 

 5 lines long ; the campanular and somewhat scarious calyx is 

 very thin in texture, of a pale glaucous hue, is 1^ line broad and 

 long, at first with five short minute teeth, but they become irre- 

 gularly cleft into one, two, or three longer fissures : the corolla 

 is thin in texture, funnel-shaped, the tube, contracted a little 

 above the base, being 3 lines long, and the five equal, smooth, 

 oblong segments of its border being 2 lines in length : the sta- 

 mens inserted below the middle of the tube are quite smooth, 

 one being shorter, reaching the mouth, while the other four are 



