57 



SHORT NOTES. 



PEREGEINUM 



, , Ledeb. — In the ' Botanical Magazine ' 



for December (t. 6466), Sir Joseph Hooker adopts Mr. Baker's 

 suggestion in the last Report of the Botanical Exchange Club 

 (quoted in < Journ. Bot.,' 1879, p. 250), as to the identity of the 

 "Symphytum asperrimum" of cultivation with 8. peregrvnum, Ledeb. 

 -The plant in question has long been familiar to British botanists 

 as a partially naturalised species ; and we therefore reproduce the 

 'Bot. Mag.' diagnosis of the plant, with Sir Joseph's sketch of 

 its history; the figure accompanying the description is very 

 characteristic. 



" The history of this plant, which is now well known 

 under the erroneous name of Symphytum asperrimum (or Prickly 

 Comfrey) is still obscure. That it is not the true 8. asper- 

 nmum of Don, figured by Sims in this work (t. 929), is obvious 

 from a comparison of that plate, in which the calyx is cor- 

 rectly represented as short, and shortly 5-cleft to the middle 

 only, with obtuse lobes, and which has curved prickles on the 

 stem, arising from conspicuous white tubercles. It agrees well 

 with the character of & peregrinum given in Ledebour, except 

 that the appendages between the stamens are rather shorter 

 (than longer) than the anthers, and the style is not always bent 

 below the top (stylo infra apicein infracto), though it is sometimes 

 so above the middle. From S. caucasicum it differs in the stem 

 not being hirsute, nor the leaves softly hoary, and in the calyx 

 being deeply divided. In the Beport of the Botanical Exchange 

 - Uub cited above (in which work I find the plant for the first time 

 referred, though doubtfully, to S. peregrinum) it is suspected to be 

 a garden hybrid between S. asper rimnm and 8. officinale, which 

 latter is said to be often planted for forage. This may be so, but 

 tuere is no evidence of its hybridity, and Ledebour gives a habitat 

 £»r the indigenous S. peregrinum, namely, Sawunt in the Talysch 

 Province of the Caucasus, at a height of 4000 feet above the sea ; 

 a] ia I fiave seen excellent dried specimens in the Kew Herbarium, 

 collected by Besser (under the erroneous name of S. caucasicum, 

 *"*.)» and by Wilhelms, collected in Iberia in 1824, and sent 



Tt 1 the name ° f S ' (,s P erri '»' n " to tlie late J - Ga y> wil0 has 

 ached to the specimen the note, " Je crois que c'est le 



»mphytum caucasicum, M. B. et nullement le S. aspenimum:' 

 ^oissier in his 'Flora Orientalis' (vol. hi., p. 175) indeed says of 

 £• P&egrimm and another, "Forma* hortenses forsan hybrids." 

 astly for my own p ai .t, I se e very little reason to regard it as 

 woer than a very large form of S. officinale, with the stem fistula* 



hvl°^r P r .°k au ly originating from cultivation, and not from 

 y ridization. The specimen here figured flowered in the Eoyal 



Cb'-! nS fr ° m plants of " Prickl y Comfrej," presented by Mr. T. 



t j ,[ J' Wno * las keen the means of widely diffusing the culture of 



son! u '" J,h y tUm as a fodder plant, under the above name. For 



™e notes of its use as a cattle-food I must refer to the ' Report 



i 



