Linnaean Society. 283 



The next group, which has no perfect flowers, and a tendency to 

 produce hastate or triangular leaves, is the one which presents the 

 greatest difficulties. We find here, in the last edition of Mr. Babing- 

 ton's ' Manual,' three new species, besides A. erecta of Hudson, 

 which, though adopted by Smith as a very rare plant, is, if Babing- 

 ton's view be correct, one of the most common. The surface of the 

 seeds and the shape and tubercles of the perigonium or enlarged calyx 

 covering the fruit seem to be a good deal relied upon in distinguishing 

 these species ; but Mr. Woods states that several species, or at least 

 several forms, have two sorts of seeds. Those of the smaller calyces 

 are slightly depressed, smooth, black and shining ; while those 

 formed in the larger calyces are much larger, so much so as to have 

 occasionally three times the diameter of the upper seeds ; they are 

 considerably more depressed, of a dark chestnut colour, and wrinkled 

 or shagreened. The sepals are all at first smooth, and those in the 

 lower part of the plant frequently never become tubercled. This he 

 notes as particularly the case in A. angustifolia, of which otherwise 

 the perigonium is as distinctly tubercled as in ^. erecta. Mr. Woods 

 is willing to admit as three common species — A. angustifolia, with 

 rhomboid leaves and all the seeds black and smooth ; A.patula, with 

 triangular leaves, and all or nearly all of the seeds depressed and 

 shagreened; and A. deltoidea, with triangular leaves, and all or 

 nearly all the seeds thick, black and smooth. A, erecta he thinks 

 to be different from A. angustifolia, though he is unable to point out 

 any satisfactory character. With A. prostrata and A. microsperma 

 he is not sufficiently acquainted to form any judgment. A. rosea of 

 Babington is perhaps a good species, though nearly allied to some 

 of the maritime varieties of A. patula, and perfectly distinct from 

 the A. rosea of continental botanists. The latter is a self-supporting 

 plant, and not prostrate like the A. rosea of Babington. Koch sepa- 

 rates A. laciniata and A. rosea from the other species by the lobes 

 of the perigonium, united to the middle ; but this is often the case in 

 A. patula, and not always so in A. laciniata. They are however 

 hardened and of a pale colour. The author is disposed to rely more 

 on the uniform buff colour of the stem, which in A. patula and its 

 allies is green with resinous stripes. The A. laciniata of the south 

 of Europe is not our English plant. The former has its clusters dis- 

 posed in long naked spikes, the latter in short leafy ones. Ours is 

 probably the Linnaean plant. The perigone in Atriplex varies from 

 ovate to rhombic, or to a square attached at the angle, and from that 

 to campanulate ; the latter form is so decided in all the specimens 

 of the continental plant with fully formed seeds within reach of Mr. 

 Woods, that he suggests the trivial name of A. campanulata. 



Read also the following Letter from Linnaeus to the Rev. John 

 White, formerly Chaplain at Gibraltar, and brother of Gilbert White 

 of Selborne and of Benjamin White, then the principal English pub- 

 lisher of works on natural history. Communicated by John Gould, 

 Esq., F.L.S. &c. 



19* 



