36 



THE NATURALIST. 



P. officinalis. Angl. Eoot-stock thick and wide-spreading, producing 

 two or three puhescent stems from six to eighteen inches in height, which are 

 furnished with numerous scales of a pinkish mauve colour, naked below, and 

 silky on the outside, the upper part keeled, and the point leafy ; they are 

 from two to three inches long, lanceolate in shape, the lowest quite an inch 

 broad, recurved, those of the lower flowers nearly or quite twice their length 

 when not expanded, the upper bracts linear, lanceolate, and shorter than the 

 flowers ; flower-heads always solitary upon one peduncle united in an oval 

 oblong thyrsoid cluster not narrowed at the summit ; peduncle silky ; invo- 

 lucre obconical, silky at the base, one or two narrow acute phyllaries shorter 

 than the rest which are equal, slightly shorter than the expanded florets, 

 very various in breadth, naked, green on the back, all round the edge a deli- 

 cate pinkish mauve colour like the flowers, bracts and scales, narrowed 

 suddenly to a bluntly triangular or rounded point, stigmas sometimes protruded 

 beyond the flower, and the style visible, sometimes quite included by the 

 anthers ; leaves attaining considerable size before the flowers disappear ; in 

 form rather broader than deep, usually somewhat angular for the lower half, 

 the lobes so much cordate that they often overlap, in colour bright green on 

 the upper side, slightly cottony beneath. The flowers have a faint sweet 

 scent, and quite lose their colour in drying and become dirty sepia-brown. 



Judging from the descriptions our plant seems nearest to P. rijoaria, but 

 to drffer as follows : — 



1st. In the flower heads, which in P. riparia are said to vary from one 

 to three in number upon a peduncle, and in our plant are always single. 



2nd. In the flower cluster, which is narrowed almost to a point in tha 

 continental species, and in ours is quite blunt at the summit. 



3rd. P. riparia is said to have brown phyllaries, whilst in our plant they 

 are green with a delicate pinkish border. 



4th. In P. riparia the leaves come after the flowers, in the English plant 

 they are frequently half a foot wide before the flower disappears. 



5th. The leaves in P. riparia are cottony on the upper side, and their 

 basal lobes never overlap ; ours are not at all cottony, and the lobes frequently 

 overlap. , * 



6th. The continental plant has no scent whilst P. officinalis is odorous. 



Sowerhyy near Thirsk, May 11th, 1865. 



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