254 Mr. C. C. Babington on Arctium Lappa and Bardana. 



far as to say that they are not even distinguishable as varieties. 

 It appears to me that part of this difference of opinion may be 

 referred to the unsatisfactory manner in which they have been 

 figured in EngUsh Botany, neither of the plates numbered re- 

 spectively 1228 and 2478, representing either of the plants in 

 the state in which I find them in nature. Tab. 1228, which 

 is named A, Lappa, has the habit, protruded flowers and small 

 heads of A. Bardana, but it wants the woolly involucrum, and 

 has the leaves too much waved at their margins for that plant. 

 Tab. 2478, denominated A. Bardana, has the habit and large 

 green heads of A. Lappa, but its involucrum is clothed with 

 wool, its flowers are protruded, and its leaves want the wavy 

 margin and numerous prickles of that species. From this 

 confusion of characters I cannot avoid suspecting that some 

 mistake has occurred, and am not surprised that any botanist, 

 on a cursory view of the figures in comparison with speci- 

 mens, should have believed the plants to be very variable. I 

 had myself come to that conclusion, and should not probably 

 soon have detected my mistake, had not an eminent practical 

 botanist informed me that he had always been accustomed to 

 distinguish two Burdocks in the earlier years of his life (be- 

 fore the publication of those figures), but that latterly he had 

 failed in determining them by their technical characters. I am 

 now become convinced that two plants of different habit, and 

 possessing distinctive characters, which are very permanent, 

 exist in England, and propose describing them as follows : 



]. Arctium Lappa, Linn. Capitulis subcorymbosis, involucri 

 glabriusculi squamis interioribus concoloribus lineari-lanceolatis 

 in mucronulum sensim attenuatis margine scariosis flosculos 

 superantibus. 



A. Lappa, Linn. Sp. PL ii. 1143. Sm. Eng. FL iii. 380. 



A. majus, Schkuhr. iii. 49. Wim. et Grab. Fl. Silec. iii. 105. Le- 

 deb. Fl. Alt. iv. 37. 



Lappa major, Gaertn. ii. 379, t, 162. DC. Prod. vi. 660. Koch. 

 Syn. 404. Peterm. FL Lips. 600. 



L. officinahs, " AIL" Spenn. FL Frib. 491. 



In this plant the involucrum is longer than the florets, the 

 scales are all yellowish-green, rigid, subulate and hooked, with 

 the exception of a very few of the innermost ones, wJiich are 

 linear-lanceolate, contracting gradually into a shghtly curved 



