BRUNELLA LACINIATA X VULGARIS 9 
though the other parts of the same field are under cultivation. 
These facts suggest that the plant has ete: come to this 
country as an impurity among foreign seeds. Mr. Weaver (/.c.) held 
this opinion regarding the origin of the plant in Gloucestershire. 
My chief interest in the plant, however, is concerned with the 
fact that wherever I have seen it in this country, it has occurred 
not only with its close ally B. vulgaris—an almost ubiquitous 
lant in southern England—but also with a number of forms 
intermediate between the two species. I have searched for these 
intermediates in a very large number of localities, and in very 
different kinds of habitats where B. vulgaris grows alone, but 
searched in vain. One cannot help suggesting ee that the 
‘ateeenediahad are hybrids of the two species, and that they are in 
no wise due se — special or peculiar features of ra habitats in 
which they oc 
The e hypothesis that the serene ager are hybrids received 
corroboration last June, when a of botanists from Ca 
bridge, led by Mr. A. G. Tansley, visited south-eastern France. 
In some of the localities then visited, B. laciniata was abundant, 
whilst B. vulgaris only occurred rarely and locally but whenever 
the two species did occur together, the same intermediates were 
found, though they were entirely absent from the oegas hig and 
extensive areas where B. laciniata occurred alone. ~ BB. 
Adamson and Mr. A. §. Marsh, both of whom were with the ar 
and both of whom had seen the intermediate plants in England, 
were naturally interested in om occurrence of the intermediate 
plants under these circumstance 
Until, however, the reer ee: been produced poromner £69 . 
is best to refer to them as putative hybrids, Sprit le 
doubt that, as soon as artificial crossings of the tw Doma pa 
made, the conclusion ie _ intermediate uabars are hybrids will 
be experim entally demonstrated. 
Although the two se ta e very closely related to each 
other, it happens that the most definite characters for their 
separation are such as appeal instantly to the eye. B. _—— 
has entire leaves: B. laciniata has leaves more or less deeply cu 
B. vulgaris has usually blue or purple flowers, rarely pink or fas 
white: B. laciniata has constantly cream-coloured flowers. 
sar iera other distinguishing characters (such as the degree of 
hairiness and the ae of the inflorescence) are less convincing, 
or at toast less obvi 
n leaf-cutting the hybrids exhibit every possible gradation 
from one apesies to the other 
As regards the stom of the flowers, the matter is complicated 
by the variability of B. vulgaris itself. The flowers of this 
. ia 
r grow if (as indeed some botanists eget now 
“ool a ; bellers) a are - to hybridism, the cross whic 
them must have taken place in glacial or pre-glacial times “pico 
