442 Mr.C.C. Babington on British species of Plumbaginaceze. 
wards repeatedly forked with acute-angled axils. Outer bract 
almost wholly diaphanous, bluntly pointed ; inner twice as long, 
blunt, upper half wholly diaphanous. Leaves short, variable in 
breadth and often rather acute, usually with a small mucro from 
below their extremity ; the point sometimes so strongly recurved 
as to cause the leaf to appear retuse. 
Muddy shores of Norfolk and Suffolk. Jersey, Dr. Jos. Dick- 
Son. 
British botanists will doubtless complain that the name usually 
employed by them for this plant is here replaced by one nearly 
or altogether a stranger to them, and which certainly seems 
far from appropriate when applied to an English plant; but it 
may be remarked that the name S. reticulata has been attached 
to so many quite different species as to make its retention a source 
of confusion and difficulty rather than of use. The remark of 
Boissier seems very just when, after stating that the Linnzan 
plant is probably that now called S. cancellata (Bernh.), he adds, 
“hoc nomen ceterum multis plantis attributum omnino rejici- 
endum.” The Linnean specific character is short, but to my 
mind conclusive against our plant being his S. reticulata. His 
words are, “ S. scapo paniculato prostrato, ramis sterilibus retro- 
flexis nudis, foliis cuneiformibus ” (Sp. Pl. 394) ; and it is curious 
to observe how Smith, when publishing the supposed S. reticu- 
lata in ‘ Eng. Bot.’ (t. 328), slightly altered that character by the 
addition of the words “a little pointed” to the description of 
the leaves: in the ‘ Eng. Fl. (ii. 116) he has omitted the term ~ 
“ ramis retroflexis ” of Linneus, but still says “leaves wedge- 
shaped” in the specific character, but alters it to “spathulate ” 
in the description. Our plant certainly cannot be correctly de- 
scribed as having “ ramis sterilibus retroflexis,” for they are all 
ascending or even erect, forming very acute angles at their bifur- 
cations; neither are its leaves at all “ wedge-shaped,” but may 
be correctly designated obovate-spathulate. The remark in ‘ Eng. 
Bot.,’ that the “bark in our specimens is a little erisped and 
tuberculated, which we do not observe in the Linnean ones,” 
shows that Smith was not altogether satisfied of the identity of 
the plants. 
Let us now turn to the S. cancellata (Bernh.), a specimen of 
which (the S. furfuracea, Reich. Fl. exsic.) is now before me, and 
we shall find the “ramis retroflexis” of Linnzeus, or as Boissier 
says, “scapis ramosissimis rectangule-infracto-flexuosis,” and 
also the “foliis cuneiformibus,” or ashe describes them, “‘obovato-: 
cuneatis retusis.” 
Having I think disposed of the name S. reticulata as applica- 
ble to our plant, we now come to the proof of its identity with 
the S: caspica (Willd.), and here it may be remarked that Sir W. 
