2*20 Smooth-stemmed Form of Foxglove 



reference to any sharp contrast presented by the lower region. This is 

 the more surprising as the two forms very frequently occur together in 

 copses, woods and hedgebanks through the length and breadth of England. 

 I had hoped to be able to give a more or less full list of the areas in this 

 country where the smooth-stemmed form occurs mixed with the hairy, 

 and where it appears not to accompany it, but I have been obliged to 

 postpone further investigation in this direction owing to the difficulties 

 which have arisen in consequence of the war. That it is widely dis- 

 tributed as a wild or naturalised plant there is no doubt. I have myself 

 observed it as far north and south as Northumberland and the New 

 Forest ; in the Midlands ; and as far east and west as Kent and Surrey 

 and Somersetshire and Carnarvonshire. Also wherever I have chanced to 

 examine plants in gardens I have invariably found both forms growing 

 mixed together. In herbarium material, whether British or Continental, 

 I find purpurea represented by either form indifferently and without dis- 

 tinction. In the Cambridge collections, for example, specimens from 

 Surrey, Gloucestershire, Wales and Scotland, and from the Black Forest 

 and the Vosges appear to be smooth S while other specimens from Scot- 

 land and Germany, from Gibraltar and Castile, Portugal, France and the 

 English counties Shropshire, Sussex and Worcestershire (Malvern Hills)^ 

 are hairy. Again in the Kew collections, out of some score of specimens 

 examined, about two-thirds were found to be nudicaulis and one-third 

 only of the recognised type. There appear, however, to be localities in 

 England, and no doubt abroad, where pubescens occurs alone — nudicaulis 

 alone I have never met'*. For the following information on this point 

 I am indebted to the kindness of friends who were good enough to make 

 observations in response to my enquiries. Dr J. C. Willis tells me that 

 of some hundreds of plants examined on Worcestershire and Hereford- 

 shire Beacons (Malvern Hills) he and his daughter noticed only pubescens. 

 Statements to the same effect were sent to me by Dr O. Withers in 

 regard to the neighbourhood of Sidmouth and to his own garden there 

 where plants had appeared spontaneously from self-sown "wild" seed; by 



1 Although in some of these specimens only the upper part of the stem is preserved, 

 I have no doubt as to the identification being correct in these cases. 



2 On the Lickey Hills on the other hand I found both forms. 



3 In the only two districts where I attempted an actual count over a small area — a copse 

 at Holmwood (Surrey) and a cleared piece of land near Stocksfield (Northumberland) — 

 I found in the former case a slight, and in the latter a considerable predominance of the 

 smooth form. Information kindly sent to me by a friend in regard to a wood in Somerset- 

 shire on the other hand was to the effect tbat pubescens was much more abundant than 

 nudicaulis. 



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