KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADBMIENS HANDLINGAE. BAND 55. N:0 5. 99 



broad ligules, the separated verticils of the spike, the yellowish-green perianths, and 

 olive-coloured small fruits. Gussone adopted the new species in his Fl. Siculse 

 Synopsis, 1842, but with the remark that it seemed to him only slightly separated from 

 P. pusillus, and in the Italian flora-literature it appears only as a synonym of this 

 species. Nay, the name even falls into oblivion until Babington in a dissertation 

 on P. kmceolatus Sm. (1881), though only incidentally, brings it into discourse. 

 Reichenbach adopts the species, but changes the Friesian name into the impossible 

 designation of »P. {fusillus L.) tenuissimus M. K.j, but nevertheless with the re- 

 mark: — species videtur distincta. In our days P. panormitamis has been taken 

 for a variety of P. pusillus. Thus Ae. Bennett in The Journ. of Botany, 1881, and 

 MoRONG in 1893. Lastly, in the year 1901, the name has been used in its original 

 sense by Hagstrom in his review of the Swedish species of the genus in Neuman, 

 Sveriges Flora. At the same time the identity betwen this species and P. gracilis 

 Fr. has been pointed out. But I have not considered the two names to be quite 

 synonymous. The difference above referred to exists, but the two names at all 

 events cover the same species. The Friesian name, however, must recede, since it 

 was earlier applied by Wolfgang to another plant. Full recognition has not j'^et 

 been bestowed on this species, since Fischer in Mitteilungen n:o 32 der Bayer Bot. 

 Ges., 1904, has adopted it only as a subspecies, while Graebner (1907) relegates it 

 to the rank of proles under P. pusillus. 1 believe, however, that a plant which with 

 constant characteristics has spread over both the Old and the New World, thus, 

 although of slight appearance following in the footsteps of the Great Powers will 

 ultimately become duly observed and acknowledged. 



Having placed two well developed specimens of the two species beside one 

 another, everyone, at the first glance and comparison, will find that we have to do 

 with two different species. Dr. H. Lindberg at Helsingfors, having seen them 

 growing together, writes to me (1908): — De voro ute i naturen sa olika, att jag 

 genast sag, att jag hade nagot nytt framfor mig.^ In the first place the very colour is 

 different, P. panormitanus having a more light green often yellowish tint in accor- 

 dance with P. mucronatus, while P. pusillus has a darker colour inclining to brown 

 like P. ohtusijolius with which it also for the rest shows a greater resemblance and 

 relationship than with the species we are here concerned with. The mode of growth 

 is also different: P. panorm. stretches itself elegantly upwards rutilusAxhe, P. 

 pus. again expands like a bush with copious branches in the upper part, if there is 

 space and occasion for it. The mode of prolongation finally is another, so that P. 

 panorm. stretches the upper internodes of the stem to the necessary length, but never 

 prolongs by branches of several ranks, distichously, which is, again, the character- 

 istic of P. pusillus, obtusifolius, and others. Usually there is in the axil of the upper 

 involucral leaf a very short spike-bearing branch, that is all (type A, of the fig. 2). 

 P. pusillus, on the contrary, projects from the primary two involucral leaves long 



* On observing them growing I immediately found that I had a novelty before me. 



