32 H. G. SIMMONS. [sec. arct. exp. fram 



brevissimo". This description shows clearly enough that the question 

 is about a species of the bidentate section, and had Brown's descrip- 

 tion only been duly observed, no comphcations would have arisen about 

 this species, but unluckily, in the same year (1823) there appeared the 

 above-quoted monograph of Steven where the plant in question was 

 put together with P. lanata under the name P. Langsdorfl, which 

 Fischer had used in herbarium labels, most probably instead of the 

 present P. lanata (cf. above). 



However the name of Rob. Brown was buried among the synonyms 

 and that of P. Langsdorfl went its way through literature to comprise 

 more or less heterogeneous things in the works of different authors. 

 Some used it only for the plant, which by right should bear the equally 

 old and unambiguous name given by Brown. Such are Chamisso & 

 Schlechtendal, Bunge in Ledebour (1. c.) and Maximowicz. Hooker, 

 as already mentioned, has thrown it together with P. lanata. Durand 

 alone, in PI. Kan. has upheld the name of R. Brown, but he too seems 

 to have altered his views afterwards, for in Enum. pi. Smith S., he 

 speaks of P. Langsdorfl instead of P. arctica (p. 94, note). Lange 

 Consp. Fl. Groenl., p. 76, puts P. arctica, R. Br. as a synonym under 

 P. lanata though he says about P. Langsdorfl "a praecedente (P. 

 lanata) abunde differt" (p. 77). And this he does, notwithstanding that 

 he seems to have seen specimens of the plant from the Kane expedi- 

 tion, of which Durand says: — "Flowers dark purple, with two small 

 teeth at the helmet"; which is enough to show that Durand has had 

 the real P. arctica and not P. lanata in front of him. 



The great resemblance in habit, shown by the plant in question to 

 P. hirsuta, caused me, when I first found it, to take it for a variety 

 of that species; but, on closer inspection, it soon proved to be well 

 distinguished from it. But I was inclined to use the name P. Langs- 

 dorfl for it, and, misled by Lange, I also doubted if the name of Rob. 

 Brown had any reference to it. On seeing the original specimens of 

 Brown's plant (Melville Island, leg. E. Sabine) in the Nat. Hist. Mus., 

 I immediately recognised it as the same as that which I had collected, 

 and it hardly needed further confirmation of specimens in the Kew her- 

 barium, to convince me that this was the same plant as P. Langsdorfl, 

 and that Brown's name with its clear description, was the only one 

 that could be used for it. 



As my specimens are almost entirely in accord with the descrip- 

 tion in Chlor. Melv. it may be enough to refer to it; but there is one 

 point in which they are somewhat different. The Melville Island speci- 

 mens have ;a single stem, but my specimens from Hayes Sound have 



