re ee TC eee 
ee en ee 
TR ey 
Pe eo ee 
a a ea mee ee 
Dr. G. A. Walker-Arnott on Hypericum Anglicum. 363 
Mr. Babington’s character, except one from “ Hills behind 
Greenock,”’ which I found in the herbarium of the late Mr. D. 
Steuart of Edinburgh, but without any indication of the precise 
locality, the person by whom or the date when collected, although 
various circumstances connected with my late friend lead me to 
suppose that he had either collected or received it prior to 1818. 
This specimen agreed so well with Mr. Babington’s description, 
that I could not doubt of its being the same species which he 
had in view, although in mine the pedicels and peduncles were 
certainly not winged—a point which he and Bertoloni considered 
of great importance. In all the species of Hypericum the leaves are 
opposite and decussate ; and it usually results from this mode of 
arrangement that herbaceous stems, or the herbaceous or young 
parts of woody stems, are 2-edged or 4-angled, but that after 
the leaves cease, and there are no large bracts to fulfil their 
functions, the peduncles are irregularly angled or terete. When 
there are four sepals, and these of large size, we often find the 
pedicels 2—4-angled ; but when there are five, or when they are 
small, vegetable physiology shows that we cannot expect this 
appearance, or, when it is observed, must conclude that it is 
accidental, and not a peculiarity of the species. I was therefore 
not disposed to consider the wings on the peduncles mentioned 
by Bertoloni to be of any importance for distinguishing the spe- 
cies—if, indeed, he had not been deceived by a much-pressed, 
dried specimen. 
H. elatum of Aiton is said to have been introduced to our 
gardens in 1762 ; but as yet its native country is undetermined : 
at one time it was supposed to have been brought from North 
America, but it is now well ascertained not to be indigenous 
there. On comparing H.Anglicum from Greenock with a culti- 
vated specimen named H. elatum, which I have from the late Mr, 
Brodie’s herbarium, their identity was so apparent that I was 
disposed at once to cancel the former name; but I was deterred 
by the description given by Spach of his Androsemum parvi- 
florum (Ann. Se. Nat. 2™ sér. v. p. 361), which was taken from 
a cultivated specimen of H. elatum, Ait. (not Desrousseaux), in 
which he states that the flowers are not much larger than in AH. 
Androsemum, and that the sepals become much enlarged as the 
fruit advances towards maturity,—neither of which characters 
applied to what I had before me. I am now quite satisfied, 
however, that they are the same, and that the sepals vary much 
in size on the same branch, and sometimes in the same corymb ; 
indeed, they may occasionally be seen small long after the 
petals fall away, while they are large in some of the flower-buds. 
The size of the flowers appears to depend much on the humidity 
of the situation. 
24% 
