KEY TO BRITISH RUBI. 203 



stam. Fr, small and acid. Barely a white -flowered form is found, 

 and a "white" fruited one. 



_ Usually recognisable at a glance by the large-based hooked 

 prickles of the pan., and the shining white-felted under surface of 

 the small obovate cuspidate Its. 



b. R. elongatm (Merc). — Prof . Babington has suggested this name 

 for a bramble which Mr. Briggs brought me from Freshwater (I. of 

 Wight) in 1886, differing from typical rusticanus in the Its., which 

 are distinctly acuminate, and much narrowed to the entire base. 

 I have seen somewhat similar plants from other localities. 



^ c. R. pubiyerus Bab. — " St. angular, stellately hairy with spreading 

 hairs, prickles slender from a dilated oblong depressed scarcely 

 compressed base, patent or deflexed." — Bab. Man. ed. 8, p. 110. 

 I have seen no authentic specimen ; but the description would fit 

 what I have commonly regarded as a hybrid between rusticanus and 

 leucostachys. That R. rusticanus does hybridise in nature somewhat 

 freely there can, I believe, be no doubt ; and especially, though not 

 exclusively, with leucostachys, corylifolius, and casius. This may 

 also be the origin of R. macroacanthus Blox. 



Hedges and thickets, generally distributed. Common as this 

 bramble is in most parts of England, it is more sensitive to frost 

 than some others, and so does not make its way so high up on the 

 hills. 



30. B. pubescens Weihe ? R. thyrsoideus Bab. prius. — St. 

 strong and rather high-arching at first, angular and somewhat sulcate, 

 usually with a rather thick coat of stellate hairs, sometimes sub- 

 glabrous. Prickles few, rather short, declining from a much dilated 

 compressed base. L. large, 5 -nate- digitate. Lts. fiat, coriaceous, 

 subglabrous and shining above, softly hairy and greenish-white-felted 

 beneath, strongly acuminate, obovate or oval, with coarse, irregular, 

 but usually rather shallow teeth ; term, subcordate. Pan. narrow, 



rather long and lax, the branches few-flowered (usually only 1-3 fl.) 

 and very short, the upper patent, the lower (which are very distant) 

 subpatent ; with 3-nate and simple leaves like the 5-nate stem ones 

 in shape, colour, and texture, and rather few declining or deflexed 

 prickles. Cal. hairy and felted like the under surface of the 1. Pet. 

 rather large, white. 



Dr. Focke still hesitates, as he did in 1890 (v. Journ. Bot. for 

 that year, p. 135), to reckon R. pubescens among British Kubi. But 

 the bramble I have here described is certainly very widely distributed 

 in England, is even locally abundant, and does not appear to me so 

 very variable as Dr. Focke evidently considers it. The features in 

 which it usually differs most from the German plant are apparently 

 its weaker prickles and somewhat narrower Its. R. thyrsoideus 

 Wimm. seems even more doubtfully British, and so for the present 

 at all events is best omitted from our list. Of the Tamerton Foliot 

 (Devon) plant, which Dr. Focke himself was disposed to accept in 

 1872, Mr. Briggs wrote to me only a few weeks before his death 

 (with specimens from that locality), M I think the plant said to be 

 the true thyrsoideus that I got some years ago was only a form of 



