ADDITIONAL NOTES, ETC. 427 



times have tlie nodding buds of E. palustre, and resemble 

 it at first sight." This is a question not easily answered 

 at the present time ; because we have now to carve out 

 E. virgatum and E. Lamyi, partly perhaps from the ex- 

 amples hitherto referred to E. palustre, but chiefly (as I 

 think) from those formerly considered E. tetragonum. 

 As in every similar instance of dissevered species, it be- 

 comes needful to re-examine and verify the old habitats, 

 so as to assign them correctly to one or other ; because it 

 must otherwise remain uncertain to which of the dis- 

 severed species any given locality belongs, if previously 

 published only under the joint name used as common to 

 both, while reputed a single species. 



374, b. Epilohium alsinifolium, vol. i. p. 374. 



There is a true species under this name, distinct from 

 E. alpinum by its habit of growth ; but I fear that broad- 

 leaved and otherwise luxuriant states of the latter have 

 been often misnamed E. alsinifolium ; and hence the dif- 

 ficulty and uncertainty which has been felt in distinguish- 

 ing the two species. So late as the sixth edition of the 

 British Flora (1850) the following passage is still printed, 

 by way of argument to show that the two may be dis- 

 tinct; — "in Wales, however, where E. alsinifolium, is 

 found, E. alpinum is never seen." Yet so long ago as the 

 date of the New Botanist's Guide (1835), the locality of 

 Snowdon, North Wales, was published for E. alpinum' 

 and E. alshaifolium, both, on the testimony of Mr. C. C. 

 Babington. On faith of that record the south limit of E. 

 alpinum was indicated in Caernarvonshire, in the first 

 volume of the present work. True, Mr. Babington was a 

 botanist of comparatively small experience in or before 

 1835 ; but as he allows that record still to remain unchal- 

 lenged by himself, it may be presumed that he still knows 



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