BOTANY 



South Devon is especially rich in our rarer British forms ; no less 

 than 1 6 of these having been actually added to our present list, as new 

 for the British Isles, from that vice-county. Fourteen were thus found 

 and distinguished (though not all at once rightly named) by Mr. Briggs 

 before the publication of his Flora in 1880, within 7 or 8 miles of 

 Plymouth, viz. Rubus opacus Focke, R. affinis Wh. & N., var. Briggsianus 

 Rogers, R. erythrinus Genev., R. dumnoniemis Bab., R. ramosus Briggs, 

 R. micans Gren. & Godr., R. Boraanus Genev., R. anglosaxonicus Gelert, 

 R. Borreri Bell Salt., var. dentatifolius Briggs, R. radula Weihe, sub-sp. 

 anglkanus Rogers, R. oigocladus Muell. & Lefv., R. mutabilis Genev., 

 var. nemorosm Genev., R. thyrsiger Bab., R. botryeros Focke. The 

 remaining two were discovered a few years later : R. Rogersii Linton, 

 near Moreton Hampstead in the Teign basin ; and R. hirtus W. & 

 K., var. rubiginosus (P. J. Muell.), in Bickleigh Vale, about 5 miles 

 from Plymouth. Fifteen out of these sixteen well-marked bramble 

 forms (i.e. all but R. nemorosus, Genev., which is still unknown away 

 from the Plymouth neighbourhood) have now been found in other 

 parts of England ; but south Devon is still the chief home of about half 

 of them, and especially of R. ramosus, R. Borceanus, R. thyrsiger and R. 

 botryeros, all characteristic plants of more than one district in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood of Plymouth. 



Other rare British brambles found in south Devon are R. integribasis 

 P. J. Muell. (Chagford and Milber Down), R. holerythros Focke (Plym- 

 bridge Road, Egg Buckland ; and the Kingston neighbourhood), R. 

 ^estierii Lefv. & Muell. (Pamflete near Kingston), and R. divexiramus 

 P. J. Muell. (between Beer Alston and Tavistock). Two more, the 

 names of which may still be open to some doubt, are R. macranthelos 

 Marss. (so far found nowhere in the British Isles except in two localities 

 near Plympton St. Mary and on the border of Dartmoor near Cholwich- 

 town) ; and R. leucanthemus P. J. Muell. (near Fancy, Egg Buckland). 



Several of these rarer south Devon brambles have not yet been 

 detected in north Devon ; but the latter vice-county is by no means 

 badly furnished with rarities of its own. Of these the most interesting 

 are R. sulcatus Vest., Holsworthy and Thornbury Road ; R. cariensis 

 Genev., neighbourhood of Lynton (its first recorded British station), and 

 several localities from Pyworthy and Holsworthy to Barnstaple and 

 Ilfracombe ; R. danicus Focke, Marnwood ; R. mollissimus Rogers, be- 

 tween Holsworthy and Thornbury and Westward Ho ! ; R. setulosus 

 Rogers, near Otterford, by the Somerset border ; R. Bloxamianus Colem., 

 Bideford ; R. Griffithianus Rogers, Lynton ; R. thyrsiger Bab., Clovelly ; 

 R. Kaltenbachii Metsch., Heanton Punchardon and MoUand ; and R. 

 ochrodermis A. Ley, Marnwood. With the exception of R, thyrsiger these 

 are all still unknown for south Devon. 



THE ROSES {Rosce) 



Though Devonshire can perhaps hardly claim the highest rank for 

 the number of its species of wild roses, there is no other English county 



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