REPORT, DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY, BRITISH MUSEUM, 1891. 373 



rachis and pedicles with numerous patent and declining aciculate 

 prickles, acicles, nnd a few stalked glands, rather thickly clothed 

 with shining spreading hairs, more or less felted above, dark purple 

 below ; sepals ovate, with long attenuate points, felted, with a narrow 

 white margin, reflexed in fruit; petals white, changing to light 

 pink, obovate, shortly clawed ; filaments white, afterward* reddenmg $ 

 longer than the pale green styles ; fruit black, usually well formed, 

 insipid ; primordial fruit-stalk scarcely longer than sepals. Flowers 

 July — August. 



R. ramosus Blox., Journ. Bot. 1871, pp. 330, 332 ; Flora of 



Warwickshire, 1891, pp. 73, 74. 



The typical plant is abundant near Min worth, but closely allied 

 varieties are abundant at Hartshill, Ryton, Wolvey, Shilton, and 

 about Corley and Radford, the plants about Ryton, Wolvey and 

 Shilton approaching it. rawosus Blox. in their more prolonged 

 panicles, but more closely allied to it. Mercicus than to any of the 

 varieties of R. ramosus. 



This plant was formerly referred to R. ramosus Blox. by Prof. 

 Babington and confirmed by the Rev. A. Bloxam, and under that 

 name it has been distributed to the members of the Botanical Ex- 

 change Club. Many years ago, however, an interchange of specimens 

 between the late Mr. T. R. Archer Briggs and myself, and a rather 

 lengthened correspondence on the subject, led us to the conviction 

 that the Devon and Warwickshire plants thus named could not be 

 regarded as identical, but it seemed to us that a definite separation 

 of them into two named species might, in the ignorance of Con- 

 tinental forms of which we were at that time conscious, prove 

 premature. Quite recently the Rev. W. Moyle Rogers has suggested 

 to me that the Warwickshire plant should now be separated from 

 the Devon R. ramosus, and distinguished by a different name, 

 either specific or varietal ; and as I think with him that there are 

 structural differences of a very marked kind, I prefer making the 

 distinction one of species. My first thought was to name the plant 

 after the county in which 1 find it, but as, besides being spread 

 widely in Warwickshire, it is also found by the Rev. W. H. 

 Purchas in Staffordshire, and I believe by the Rev. W. R. Linton in 

 Derbyshire, I have, on the suggestion of the Rev. E. F. Linton, 

 given preference to the more comprehensive and pronounceable 



My thanks are specially due to the Rev. W. Moyle Rogers for 

 his kind help in drawing up the description and for many valuable 

 suggestions. 



REPORT OF DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY, BRITISH MUSEUM, 1891 



By William Carruthers, F.R.S. 



their 



Lamed, mounted, 

 These have con- 



sisted principally of plants from Arabia, collected by Schweinfurth; 



