Mr. C. C. Babington on the British Rubi. 41 



Flowering shoot surrounded at its base by brown scales clothed 

 with ash-coloured silky pubescence, long, very hairy, with rather 

 numerous short and a few longer declining prickles ; aciculi and 

 setse short, few, except at the upper part of the shoot and 

 amongst the flowers. Leaves ternate ; leaflets nearly equal, ob- 

 ovate-cuspidate, green and hairy on both sides with paler veins 

 beneath ; general and partial petioles armed like the shoot but 

 with more numerous aciculi and setae ; the one or two uppermost 

 leaves occasionally simple, ovate or cordate or lobed. Panicle 

 very long, with several axillary racemose ascending branches and 

 a long ultra-axillary pyramidal summit with patent or divaricate 

 branches which are few-flowered and racemose below and one- 

 flowered above; the whole remarkably pyramidal and very stiff"; 

 ge"heral and partial rachis and peduncles nearly or quite straight, 

 very hairy, with slender straight yellow prickles and numerous 

 purple setae. Petals obovate-lanceolate, narrow, greenish white, 

 widely separated. Styles pale green, pinkish below. Sepals 

 lanceolate with a long setaceous point, ashy, downy, prickly, 

 setose, green within, lying close to the fruit and either patent or 

 forced back by it. Primordial fruit oblong, others shorter. 



Valley of Llanberis, N. Wales, in great plenty. August. 



Obs. This beautiful and conspicuous plant agrees so nearly 

 with R. Guntheri that I think it best to consider it as a form of 

 that species, but have thought it advisable to describe it at some 

 length. Its chief diff'erences consist in its very rigid and straight, 

 not wavy, rachis ; the divaricate rather than ascending upper di- 

 visions of the panicle ; gi-eenish white, not pink (?), petals ; and 

 more prickly and not truly reflexed sepals. It also much resem- 

 bles R, thyrsifloruSj but has a diff'erent appearance owing to the 

 almost constantly single-flowered and spreading upper divisions 

 of its panicle and its narrower petals. Its examination has con- 

 firmed me in the opinion formerly expressed that R. Guntheri 

 and R. thyrsiflorus of the ' Rubi Germ.^ are forms of one species. 

 When representing the plants in that work the artist seems to 

 have been provided with a rather weak panicle of the former 

 and a very strong one of the latter, thus causing them to appear 

 more than naturally diff'erent. 



In our plant the panicle is often several feet long, and its lower 

 axillary branches are exactly like the smaller panicles of less vi- 

 gorous shoots; the uppermost compound branches resembling 

 the small panicles produced by weak plants. 



25**. R. scaher (Weihe) ; caule arcuate subanguloso aspero, aculeis 

 subaequalibus validis brevibus declinatis dejiexisve, aciculis setis 

 pilisque paucis brevissimis, foliis ternatis quinatisve supra pilosis 

 subtuspallide viridibus pilosis inapqualiter apiculato-deHtatis, foliolo 



