Mr. Babington on Valerianella olitoria and V. gibbosa. 105 



he had not seen any specimens of the F. gibbosa of Gussone, 

 and most correctly observ^es, that the figure given by DeCan- 

 dolle (Mem. sur les Valerianees, tab. iii. f. 3.) as representing 

 the fruit of that plant, would lead us to believe that it was 

 scarcely more than a variety of F. olitoria. Mr. Leighton also, 

 in the addenda to his valuable ' Flora of Shropshire,' com- 

 pares the Valerianella olitoria of that county with the same 

 figure, and expresses his opinion that the English plant is verj- 

 nearly, if not exactly, the same as that of which the fruit is 

 represented by DeCandolle's fig. 3, the only difference being 

 the imperfect state of the dissepiment in our plant and its 

 completeness in V. gibbosa, and also the ciUated bracteas of 

 the former and their being constantly entire in the latter. 

 From these circumstances considerable doubts have been ex- 

 pressed concerning the claims of these plants to be considered 

 as distinct species. Before combining them however it was 

 but fair to refer to the characters of the latter plant as given 

 by its original describer Gussone (Fl. Sic. Prod., i. 28.), and 

 there we find the fruit stated to be " altero latere coarctato 

 piano, altero gibbo longiore, utraque facie bistriato costis pro- 

 minentibus ;" and of V, olitoria he says, " altero latere coarc- 

 tato utraque facie bistriato." Here we first remark that the 

 word "piano" is omitted in the second of these descriptions, 

 and by referring to my fig. 1. it will be seen how justly what 

 is usually called the front of the fruit, but by Gussone deno- 

 minated one of the sides, is described as " plane " when com- 

 pared with the same part in my fig. 2. Again, we find that 

 the words " costis prominulis " are only employed in one of 

 these characters as descriptive of the sides (or faces, according 

 to Gussone's nomenclature) of the fruit, and by referring to 

 the same figures it will be seen how coiTcct a distinction this 

 is. Without the aid of the figures however it would have been 

 far from easy to determine the true distinctions between the 

 plants, and this difficulty was greatly increased by the incor- 

 rectness of the only published representation of the fruit of 

 V. gibbosa, namely, that in DeCandolle's memoir to which I 

 have already referred. 



I have now to state my reasons for believing that the fruits, 

 of which my fig. 1. is a representation, are truly those of V. 

 gibbosa. Gussone states that the discoverer of his plant was 

 Gasparini, and it fortunately happens that that same botanist 

 (Gasparini) has supplied me with specimens gathered in Si- 

 cily, and which he states to be V. gibbosa. From these spe- 

 cimens, which agree exactly with Gussone's characters and 

 Bertoloni's detailed description, my drawing of the fully ripe 



