50 
fecfcs its fruits more frequently than does R. Flammula ; at 
least my experience of the latter is that its fruits are in- 
frequently produced in this country, whereas nearly all the 
British specimens of R. reptans which have passed through 
my hands possessed what appeared to be fertile seeds. 
R. reptans bears numerous root-leaves having long petioles 
surmounted by an ovate lamina, a character which it pos- 
sesses in common with R. Flammvla, R. Ling%ia, and R. 
opJiioglossifolius, but the leaves produced at the nodes are 
mostly linear. 
Amongst the intermediate forms which occur in this 
country is a remarkable plant which I found in the her- 
barium of the late Mr. John Hardy, possibly from Yorkshire, 
where all the leaves or nearly all were oval. From the 
facies of the plant it would appear to have been a wholly 
aquatic form, and that the almost rotund leaves were 
floating leaves. It answers to the var. ovatus of Persoon 
“Fob omnibus ovatis longe petiolatis. Poir. Circa Caen.'’ 
(Synopsis Plantarum ; pars secunda, p. 102.) 
I also exhibit a floating form with long and slender stems, 
and with long rootlets from all the lower nodes, which I 
collected in October last in a shallow pool in the neighbour- 
hood of the Gurnard’s Head, in the south of Cornwall ; it 
appears to answer to Persoon’s var. natans “fol. inferiorib^ 
ovatis integris, superiorib. linearibus. In aquis prope Monk 
morency et in Barbaria.” (l.c., p. 102.) 
The usual habit of R. Flammula, L, is to have an erect 
stem springing from a decumbent base; this is the uni- 
versal form named by Dr. Boswell var. suherectus. When 
the stem is too weak to bear the foliage and flowers it either 
trails over the ground, when it is Dr. Boswell’s var. pseudo- 
reptans, or floats on the water when it is either Persoon’s 
var. ovatus, or natans, just referred to. In these three forms 
as well as in the true reptans, it is only the terminal portions 
of the stems, or of the stem-branches, which bear flowers. 
