A form of Drosera intermedia. 195. 



Description of Drosera intermedia (Hayne), forma 

 subcaulescens, with remarks on the Geographical 

 distribution of the family. By James Cosmo Melvill^ 

 M.A., F.L.S. 



{Received December i6thy 18 go.) 



I have been requested by several botanists to give a 

 more detailed account of this curious state or variety of the 

 long-leaved Sundew of our marshes and moors than has 

 hitherto been afforded. The varietal name was appended, 

 at my instance, to D. intermedia in the 8th Edition of the 

 London Catalogue of British Plants^ published May, 1886, 

 and a few specimens from the original locality where it was 

 first detected have been distributed through the medium of 

 the Botanical Exchange Club, but as yet no proper des- 

 cription has been given of the form. 



Drosera subcaidescens differs from the type mainly in 

 having a very decided and leafy stem, varying in height 

 from J^ inch to two inches ; in the Cheshire (Wybunbury) 

 specimens the stem is leafy to the base, the leaves, which have 

 long petioles, projecting almost at right angles to the stem, 

 while towards the upper part of the stem, at the point where 

 it emerges from the water, or watery mud in which it has 

 grown, the usual tendency to form a rosette of leaves is 

 noticeable. The specimens when growing were of a pale 

 grass-green colour, differing much in outward appearance 

 from the other Droserce inhabiting the sphagnaceous turbaries 

 in quantities around. It grew plentifully in three or four 

 deep clear water trenches that had some time or other been 

 cut straight across the bog, towards the N.E. corner mainly, 

 and not far from the principal station for Lastrea cristata 



