ON THE BUXBAUMIA APHYLLA. 445 



by a great number of authors, but particularly by 

 Schmiedel, who " Buxbaumiam in Dissertation e 

 Academica pulchre et egregie explicavit." 



In the fourth number of the Flora Londinensis 

 (new series), the reader will find the best and most 

 recent account of Buxbawnia aphylla. It is 

 there minutely described, and its history admirably 

 detailed by Dr Hooker, who had first the good for- 

 tune to detect it in Great Britain, at Sprowston, 

 near Norwich. 



In 1818, Mr Stewart, lecturer on Botany in E- 

 dinburgh, was so fortunate as to find a habitat for 

 this very rare plant, on the hills in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Peebles ; from whence he procured a 

 considerable number of specimens, on some of 

 which he detected leaves, and described them as 

 being very minute, reticulate, laciniate, or deeply 

 cleft into four or five segments, and situated on the 

 sides and summit of the bulb. Mr Stewart also 

 stated, in a paper read before theWernerian Society*, 

 that he had observed more than one fruit-stalk to 

 arise occasionally from the same bulb ; and in one 

 instance so many as three : of which one was de- 

 cayed, another still retaining the calyptra, and a 

 third intermediate. This circumstance naturally 

 induced Mr Stewart to consider the plant as peren- 

 nial. I have not yet been so fortunate as to find a 

 completely satisfactory instance of this ; for though 

 I have received specimens with the fruit-stalks in 



* 11th December 1819. 



