580 BULLETIN DE L'HERBIER BÜISSIER. (11) 



middle ol'the seventecnth Century. Its occurrence in at least three groups 

 of Atlantic Islands is also no doubt the resuit of comparatively récent 

 introduction; probably as in the case of America the introduction has 

 been deliberate and has been brought about owing to the belief that 

 exists in the médical properties of « Celandine » juice. And a considé- 

 ration of the habitat of the plant in Europe itself shows that it is pro- 

 bably not indigenous in Europe at all. It is a purely « civilized » species 

 — a plant, in other words, of the « garden escape » or « weed » cate- 

 gory — in every European country; and in spite of its having been 

 known in Europe from very rernote times the probability is that it is 

 only an importation from Asia brought about during one or other of 

 the later Aryan immigrations. It is extremely interesting to find that in 

 those parts of Asia where it occurs most commonly (Central and 

 Xorthern China, Manchuriaand Japan) it is, exactly as in Europe, only 

 as a « civilized. » never as a truly « sylvestrian » species that it occurs ; 

 old walls and roadsides, there as in Europe, are the localities in which 

 it occurs. It is worthy of note that C. majus has not as yet been reported 

 from Southern or South-western China, or from any part of Indo-China, 

 Malaya, India or Persia; the only examples from Asia Minor are from 

 Anatolia, where the plant has probably been introduced from Europe. 



The variety laciniata as hère defined is a somewhat composite one. 

 It is made to include not merely the forms with laciniate petals which 

 constitute the true C. laciniatwn, but those with petals entire which 

 exhibit the foliage always characteristic of the form with fringed petals; 

 these last are really intermediate between C. laciniatwn proper and 

 C. majus and demonstrate the necessity of uniting the two plants speci- 

 fically. There seems to be no room for doubt that this form has origin- 

 ated since the appearance of C. majus in Europe; it appears to be a 

 good example of a « species » in the course of being evolved. 



The stigmas of this species have been often erroneously described as 

 being opposite the placentas; on this misapprehension has been based 

 the generic distinction between Chelidonium and StylopJwrum where 

 the stigmatic lobes, though of exactly the same nature as those of Cheli- 

 donium proper, have been generally, and accurately, spoken of as being 

 alternate with the placentas. The inflorescences and the branch System 

 in C. majus are purely cymose; the organs generally described as 

 poduncles arc in reality a succession of définitions from below upwards 

 of the main stem, and of the subséquent branches that appear in suc- 

 cession in the axil of what is a subapical leaf like the leaves of the 



