PLANTAGO LANCEOLATA L. VAR. SPH.EROSTACHYA ROHL 23 



entirely agrees with Hudson's diagnosis — u P. foliis lineari-lanceo- 

 latis basi lanatis, spica subrotunda, scapo tereti " — of what he 

 considered to be Bay's plant. I regret it did not occur to me, 

 when Mr. Salmon was working at his paper in the National Her- 

 barium, to see whether Buddie's Herbarium threw any light on the 

 matter, but the possibility of two plants being in question occurred 

 to neither of us. I have now consulted Buddie and the result 

 confirms this view. 



On folio 33 of vol. x of his Herbarium Britannicum (Herb. 

 Sloane cxxiii) are two small Plantains, labelled respectively : 



" Plantago an angustifolia J. B. Lhwyd R. Syn. [ed. 2] 185 a 

 D. Richardson collect, in eodem loco ibi notato, est potius Corono- 

 pus sive serpentina minima Ger. 425." 



M An Plantago Alpina August. J. B. et Lhwyd R. Syn. 185. 

 Plantago vero D. Lhwyd nihil est nisi quinquenervia secundum 

 D. Richardson. An Plantago angustifolia minor Tab. 732." 



The first of these is certainly P. maritima ; it is not, however, 

 the plant figured by Gerard [ed. Johnson] on p. 425. The second 

 is the plant which forms the main subject of Mr. Salmon's note. 

 The figure of Tabernaemontanus cited is a small form of P. lanceo- 

 lata and may quite well be the var. spharostachya. A later hand 

 has added to the note in Herb. Buddie a reference to Ray's Hist or ia 

 Plantarum, 878 (1686) ; here the plant is placed next to P. lanceo- 

 lata, and is called " Plantago angustifolia minor C. B. Park, quin- 

 quenervia minor Ger." Ray's description runs: " Parvitate sola 

 omnium partium a praecedente differt. Qu. annon loco natali 

 debeatur luec diversitas." Gerard in 1597 reproduces Tabernas- 

 montanus's figure (p. 339), but places it as a variety of P. media ; 

 in the later edition of the Herball, Johnson suppresses the figure, 

 doubtless seeing it had nothing to do with media, but leaves 

 Gerard's brief description, and adds under P. lanceolata a note — 

 "There is another lesse kinde of this Rib-wort, which differs 

 not from the last mentioned in anything but the smallnesse 

 thereof." 



It may I think still be argued that Ray's original plant, of 

 which no description was given, was the form of P. lanceolata which 

 Mr. Salmon identifies with spharostachya ; this latter was certainly, 

 so far as the diagnosis goes, the montana of Hudson in the first 

 edition of his Flora Anglica (p. 65). In his second edition, how- 

 ever, Hudson suppresses montana and places the Llauberis plant 

 which he had referred to it under maritima. The labelling by 

 Banks in his herbarium of one of his Welsh specimens of spharo- 

 cephala "Plantago montana Huds. lanceolata (3 Linn." shows that 

 Banks had identified his plant with Hudson's description, but had 

 referred it correctly to Linnaeus's variety of P. lanceolata. Is it 



worth a distinctive name ? 



James Britten. 



