NOTES ON BRITISH GENTIANACER. 167 
Herb. Borrer. The Isle of Wight Æ. latifolia of the Thirsk Report for 
1862 (Journ. Bot. i. 146) has since been correctly referred to Æ. Centaurium 
y Mr. A. G. More in Journ. Bot. ix. 167. 
Small specimens of Æ. littoralis also have been distributed as Æ. latifolia. 
quoted being little known, I make no apology for extracting from it the 
following very interesting details regarding tl f this species : 
“The following localities are all.where the ¿rue plant has been met with, 
or 
given in the er of discovery. In all, however, excepting the last, it 
has not been found for years ; and in the last, a careful search in 1866 and 
the present year (1867) was unsuccessful. Bootle (R. Bowman, ete. ; 
the specimen in Smith's Herbarium probably from this locality). Sea- 
spots in a large valley amongst the sandhills near to Ainsdale, in the direc- 
tion of Birkdale (F. M. We 
the plant is very erratic in its appearance, and any year it may be expected 
in quantity. "The new plate in ed. 3 of Eng. Bot. is from a specimen col- 
lected in the Ainsdale locality.” 
he plant was first described by Sir J. E. Smith in Fl. Brit. p. 1393 
(1804) as a variety of Æ. Centaurium, and subsequently as a species under 
the name of Æ. latifolia in Eng. Fl. i. 321 (1824). It was discovered in 
“ four or five miles north of Liverpool," in Herb. Mus. Brit. M 
(Comp. Cyb. Brit. 248) says, “ formerly in Cheshire (?)" ; but I have met 
with no record of it for that county. He also suggests “ an ureguiar 
growth of Centaurium?” I have looked carefully through the very large 
series of E. Centaurium contained in Herb. Mus. Brit. and Herb. Kew., 
but have seen no examples which bear out this suggestion. The true Æ. 
latifolia appears to me, judging from dried: specimens, to be a very well- 
marked and easily recognized plant. ; 
Dr. Syme (Eng. Bot. ed. 3, vi. 65) considers that Grisebach (De Cand. 
Prod. ix: 58) is “well acquainted with the true plant ;" but in this opinion 
I cannot concur, as he cites the E. B. S. figure for his plant, and places as 
a variety of it the very different E. tenuiflora, Link.* The Azorean 
plant is also quoted by him as /atifolia (op. cit. p. 561). Moreover, 
the specimens labelled byGrisebach in Herb. Kew. as probably 
Hisp. secund., no. 395) from 
Pichler from Dalmatia under the name “LZ. latifolia, 
* E. tenuiflora seems to me to differ from E. pulchella only in the narro 
iflo wer 
more acute corolla lobes ; and in some — I find it impossible to say positively 
i i i belongs. , 
omm and Lange's Prod. Fl. Hisp. ii. 661, this number is cited for 
E. tenuiflora, of which the authors say, “ Vix varietatem constituit." This, as 
their description of E. latifolia, conclusively proves their ignorance of 
s plant. 
