CHAP. XVI.] 



THE BRITISH ISLES. 



339 



that there must also be some peculiar British plants, but 

 not finding any enumeration of such in the British Floras of 

 Babington, Hooker, or Bentham, I applied to the greatest living 

 authority on the distribution of British plants — Mr. H. C. 

 Watson, who has very kindly given me all the information I 

 required, and I cannot do better than quote his words. He 

 says : " It may be stated pretty confidently that there is no 

 ' species ' (generally accepted among botanists as a good species) 

 peculiar to the British Isles. True, during the past hundred 

 years, nominally new species have been named and described on 

 British specimens only, from time to time. But these have 

 gradually come to be identified with species described elsewhere 

 under other names — or they have been reduced in rank by suc- 

 ceeding botanists, and placed or replaced as varieties of more 

 widely distributed species. In his British Buhi Professor 

 Babington includes as good species, some half-dozen which he 

 has, apparently, not identified with any foreign species or variety. 

 None of these are accepted as ' true species,' nor even as ' sub- 

 species ' in the Students Flora, where the brambles are 

 described by Baker, a botanist well acquainted with the plants 

 of Britain. And as all these nominal species of Rubi are of late 

 creation, they have truly never been subjected to real or critical 

 tests as ' species.' " 



But besides these obscure forms, about which there is so much 

 difference of opinion among botanists, there are a few flowering 

 plants which, as varieties or sub-species, are apparently peculiar 

 to our islands. These are : — (1) Helianthemum Breweri, an 

 annual rock-rose found only in Angle sea and Holyhead 

 Island (classed as a sub-species of H. guttatum by Hooker 

 and Babington) ; (2) Bosa hibernica, found only in North 

 Britain and Ireland (a species long thought peculiar to the 

 British Isles, but said to have been recently found in France) ; 

 (3) (Enanthe Jliwiaiilis, a water-dropwort, found only in the 

 south of England and in one locality in Ireland (classed 

 as a sub-species of GE. phellandrium by Hooker) ; (4) Hieracium 

 iricum, a hawk-weed found in North Britain and Ireland (classed 

 by Hooker as a sub-species of H. Lawsoni, and said to be 

 " confined to Great Britain)." 



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