SOME SCOTTISH WILLOWS. 363 



But the buds, and especially the catkin buds, and to some extent 

 the catkin scales, prove for certain that S. Lapponum is one parent. 

 The following description is drawn up from the plant as cultivated 

 in sandy and peaty soil at Bournemouth : — Twigs and buds 

 pubescent during the summer, becoming glabrous after, dark 

 brown ; leaves oblong elliptic or broadly obovate, rapidly contracted 

 to a short acute oblique point, downy and rugow with deeply 

 impressed nerves above, woolly beneath and principal nerves promi- 

 nent, margin somewhat recurved, almost entire, with here and 

 there a raised point showing a suppressed serration ; catkin short, 

 enclosed during winter in a large dark brown polished scale (like the 

 flowering bud of S. Lapponum) ; catkin-scales ovate, acute, much 

 darkened upwards, and clothed with long silky hairs; anthers 

 yellow, tipped with red. Mr. Arthur Bennett tells us that 8. 

 Lapponum x phylicifolia is known in Scandinavia, and very rare. 

 It does not appear to have been published for Britain hitherto. 



8. Lapponum X Myrsinites (S. phaophylla Ands.). — To this we 

 place gatherings of a female plant from Glen Fiagh. The catkins 

 are about f in., with 2-3 leaves at the base of the silky peduncle ; 

 catkin-scales obovate, blunt, darkened upwards, with silky hairs ; 

 ovary rather large, silky, pedicelled ; style long ; stigmas large, 

 divided; nectary long, exceeding the pedicel. Leaves ovate or 

 obovate, sometimes rounded at the base (not cordate), more fre- 

 quently narrowed to the petiole, clothed with silky hairs while 

 young, but becoming much less hairy or subglabrous, and shining 

 beneath in a subdued way, and markedly reticulate with raised 

 veins ; margin of leaf entire, or nearly so. Catkins about f in. 

 long, on \ in. peduncles ; ovaries tomentose, ovoid-conic ; lower 

 ones, if not all, shortly pedicelled ; nectary long, much exceeding 

 the pedicel, dilated upwards, yellow; style very long; stigmas 

 lar^e ; catkin-scales light brown, but darkened upwards, obovate, 

 rounded at the top, more or less involvent. Twigs silkily pubescent 

 their first year, afterwards becoming polished and reddish brown. 

 It is difficult to distinguish this from one form of S. herbacea x 

 Lapponum, which approaches and simulates it ; but the sharper 

 reticulation under leaf and the absence of serration, and the leaf 

 never being cordate, as is usually the case sooner or later with the 

 latter hybrid, are satisfactory differences. The pedicelled ovary is 

 not a certain distinguishing feature, as the ovaries are not always 

 sessile in 8. herbacea x Lapponum. This is, we believe, a first 

 notice of the hybrid for Britain. 



S. Myrsinites x ?iigricans Wimm. (S. punctata Whlnb.). — We 

 mention first a male plant found at the head of Glen Fiagh in 

 1890, with leaves clothed with silky hair, ovate-oblong to obovate, 

 subacute, blackening somewhat in drying ; catkin about £ in long. 

 From this glen we have also procured a female plant with leaves 

 near Myrsinites, hardly blackening at all in drying, and with fruiting 

 catkins much like those of nigricans; another with large inter- 

 mediate leaves, and fruiting catkins like those of 8. Myrsinites, only 

 very large for that species; another rather coarse-growing plant 

 that might easily be passed over as S. nigricans, but in which leaves 



