Lees : British and Alien Plant-Lists. 



339 



paludal dandelion, raised to specific rank, 1074 in London 

 Catalogue, 1646,0 in Oxford List. Ledum pahistre, L. — ' N. W. 

 Ireland, never confirmed' (Hooker), an occidental Boreal 

 which, if indigenous in N. W. Scotland, may be one of our 

 most Ancient Species, a palsearctic type nigh extinction. Limo- 

 nium (Statice) lychnidifoliiim, var. corymhosum, Salmon. Lysi- 

 machia quadrifolia N. (trifolia), which occurs near Meaux, E. 

 Yorks., and calls for investigation this season (Oxford List). 

 Veronica peregrina, L. V. repens D.C. (York and two other 

 counties). Euphrasias — Vigursii, Davey, Kerneri, Wettst., 

 Scottica, Wett, occidentalis, Wett., latifolia, Pursh, and Salis- 

 bitrgensis, Funck. ; but the writer himself does not funk declar- 

 ing his belief in the unwisdom of representing these as ver- 

 species, stable and standing apart. To so represent them tends 

 to destroy a standard (which, however ill-definable with 

 exactitude, is in one's mind when one thinks of — (say) — our 

 four Melampryums, all nearly allied yet obviously distinct) 

 and by making ' values ' differ, befogs not clears, our conceptions, 

 which, where we have them at all about a thingen — are light- 

 ning-quick. The genus Rhinanthus is in like case, due, 

 possibly, to evolutionary unfinishedness, if the rife readiness 

 to hybridise which Euphrasias shew be not of itself a suspicious 

 fact — altho' Rhinanthus presents some special difficulties. 



Euphrasis can accommodate themselves to various ' x\sso- 

 ciations ' and soils — Rhinanthus not nearly to the same extent. 

 Up to 1895 Britain was supposed to harbour but two ' species ' — 

 major and minor of Ehrhart. For this hardy, boreal, root- 

 crafty Colonist, L.C. loth Edn. now gives six new names, as 

 equal each one to the others. How this can be, must be 

 left to somebody else to demonstrate in the face of the fact 

 that all the forms are somewhat erratic-ephemeral possessors 

 (and exhausters) of their soil sites and companions ; those sites, 

 again, largely in some stage of hominal disturbance, ' reclama- 

 tion,' etc. After their innings on virgin (more or less) soil, they 

 are known to graduall}^ twinkle out — ever ' freaks ' of a sort. 

 One of the L. C.'s new ones, Rhinanthus grcenlandicus, Chabert, 

 is not given at all by Mr. Druce in the Oxford List. 



A new Orobanche — Ritro, var. hypochoeroides, Beck, appears 

 as for ' C ' — Druce connoting Jersej/, — but the doubtful Or oh. 

 ' arenaria ' still precedes purpurea, J acq., although it is al- 

 together ' Non Est ' in the Oxford List. To continue : Pingui- 

 cula vulgaris, var. hicolor, Nordstedt, is as welcome as 



1908 September i. 



