390 X. GENERAL REMARKS. 



by S. rupestre. In other words, the diagnostic characters 

 of the alleged two species are only descriptions of some 

 specimens, and are partially applicable even to the same 

 individual plants at different stages of growth. More- 

 over, the apparent species of Sedum are too imperfectly 

 ascertained or understood, to warrant any positive asser- 

 tion that S. forsterianum is exclusively a British plant, 

 either as variety or as species. — Allium Babingtonii, of 

 Ireland and Cornwall, is a doubtful species and doubtful 

 native. Contrary to reports about its difficult growth 

 elsewhere under similar conditions, it has readily be- 

 come a weed in a dry Surrey garden, spreading rapidly 

 by its numerous bulbils ; this being of course a simple 

 repetition of the individual, not a renewal of the spe- 

 cies. Unless reproducible by seed, continuously and 

 unchanged, it might be more correct to regard this plant 

 as a luxuriant variation of Allium Ampeloprasum ; to 

 which the more weakly examples of it occasionally ap- 

 proach by ceasing to produce the branched pedicels in 

 the umbel. — Viola Curtisii is another plant of West 

 Britain, more questioned as a true species now (Mr. E. 

 Forster being deceased), and which may perchance yet be 

 found in western Europe. When wild on the coast, it 

 approximates much towards another plant of similar 

 sandy situations, which is authoritatively referred to Viola 

 tricolor, but often mistaken for V. Curtisii. When left 

 to re-sow itself in a garden, it becomes very like some of 

 the corn-field varieties which are referred to V. tricolor, 

 except that the bracts are rarely toothed, and then only 

 very slightly so. — Saxifraga Andrewsii, of Ireland, is 

 truly puzzling. If not a real species, what is its parent- 

 age ? The record of its discovery, as if truly a wild Irish 

 plant, when read along with an inspection of the drawing 

 of it by Dr. Harvey, left an impression that it might be a 



