PLANT NOTES FOR 1913, ETC. 



375 



Vidensk. Selsk. Skrift. No. i, 1898. Lindman says he has no doubt 

 that the cultivated specimens of the original plant which he has seen 

 are identical with widely spread Scandinavian small flowered Sagina, 

 and that he cannot distinguish them from the Ben Lawers plant. 

 But Dr Schinz tells him, that so far as S. media Briigger is concerned, 

 he does not believe any true hybrid procumbens x saginoides exists 

 in Switzerland, but that S. media is a form of procumbens with 

 occasional pentamerous flowers, which will appear in the 3rd edit, of 

 Flore der Schweiz as forma intermixta Beck. Briigger's own specimen 

 labelled procumbens x saxatilis is this form ; but in his herbarum 

 his collection of S. procumbens contains some plants which Prof. 

 Lindman thinks may be the hybrid. He goes on to ask whether this 

 widely distributed plant should be considered as a mere hybrid. 

 "There may theoretically exist grounds for that view, but there is no 

 complete evidence, and practically it is very tempting to treat this 

 plant as a species on account of its wide and fairly continuous distri- 

 bution, well marked differences from other Saginae, and uniformity 

 over the whole of its large area ; it is very tempting indeed, notwith- 

 standing its predominating sterility." On this point, however, Dr 

 Lindman does not appear to be conversant with its behaviour in Britain. 

 With us its pollen is normal, it seeds quite freely, even in my Oxford 

 garden where there is no other Sagina grown to cross-pollinate it, and 

 probably its shyness in seeding in other instances may be due to its 

 creeping habit which often (as in the case of Lysimachia Nummu- 

 laria) leads to apparent sterility. Wider and closer examination of 

 it more and more convinces me that it is a good species, and this is 

 also the opinion of Prof. Graebner, who has grown it in Berlin. It 

 may be quite possible that there also is a hybrid of procumbens x 

 saginoides which mimics it (as is stated to be the case with a hybrid 

 Hypericum perforatum x dubium simulating Hypericum Desetangsii). 

 Prof. Lindman says that Prof. Lagerheim has laid stress on 

 the hybrid nature of his Normaniana, and alludes to Ostenfeld's 

 opinion on the Ben Lawers plant, but, he adds, " several features 

 might be said to point to a distinct species of a quite peculiar appear- 

 ance. Moreover, as to this plant, I hardly think that the suppression 

 of the sexual cells can in every case be regarded as sufficient proof in 

 deciding this question. As to the pollen, I have examined a great 

 number of flowers, and I was sometimes surprised to find the pollen 

 grains all alike, and very well developed. The plant in question taken 



