380 THE BOTANICAI- EXCHANCJE CLUB OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 
slightest varietal sense (colour perhaps excepted) from the type. We 
might well erase S. patens^ Sibth., from our lists. Whether the colour - 
forms — purple, blue, red or grey — be worth noting is very doubtful. 
Mr. H. Boswell quite agrees with me in the above conclusions. — 
G. C. Druce. 
Echium plantagineum, Linn. St. Aubyn’s bay, Jersey, June, 
1877. — G. C. Druce. 
Solarium Lycopersicum. In great abundance on a ballast heap at 
Aintree, Lancashire, with Hyoscyamus, Datura, etc. Flowering but 
producing no fruit. Sept, 1892. — J. A. Wheldon. Lycopersicum 
esculentum, Mbnch. 
Datura Stramonium, L. Casual, Northampton, 1879; Grand- 
pont, Berks, Aug., 1890. — G. C. Druce. 
Verbascurn pulverulentum, Vill. Near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, 
June, 1881. — G. C. Druce. 
V. virgatum, Stokes. Waste ground, Northampton ; casual. 
July, 1878. Stokes precedes Withering as the author for this species. 
See ‘Nat. Arr. Brit. Plants,’ Ed. ii., vol. i., p. 153. — G. C. Druce. 
Linaria repens. Mill. Chalk ballast, Oxford, July, 1892. — G. C. 
Druce. 
L. repens X vulgaris. Chalk ballast, Oxford, July to September, 
1892. The series of hybrids represented by the above name would 
be a good object lesson to the botanists who disbelieve in the 
occurrence of natural hybrids. The history of the plants distributed 
under the above name is recent, and beyond contradiction. Up to 
1889 we had no locality for L. repens. Mill, near Oxford ; but 
L. vulgaris, which was at that time fairly constant in character, was 
plentiful ; but an alteration in the permanent way near the railway 
station at Oxford, led to a large quantity of chalk ballast being 
brought from the chalk cutting below Didcot to fill up a portion of 
ground between the L.N.W.R. and G.W.R. lines. In 1890 Z. repens, 
Iberis amara, Htppocrepis comosa, appeared in quantity side by side 
with our own L. vulgaris. The following year numerous hybrids 
of Z. repens and Z. vulgaris appeared, but the plants were nearer 
Z. repens than Z. vulgaris. In 1892 a most complete chain of 
intermediates was found, from Z. repens with an increase of yellow on 
the lip to Z. vulti^aris with the faintest strice on the flower. Seeds of 
a hybrid about f repens and -I vulgaris proved fertile, but the plants 
which appeared were merely Z. I'epens ; but this simply verifies 
Dr. Romanes’ experiment on the breeding of rats, i.e., the offspring of 
the wild brown rat, and the albino were not piebald but brown. 
The offspring of these brown descendants of the white and brown rat, 
however, yielded piebald rats. Botanists have usually been 
satisfied with trials of one generation. I am anxious to see if the 
offspring of the Z. repens yielded by Z. vulgaris x repens will be true 
Z. repens or again revert to the hybrid or to either of the parents. 
A curious fact is also dieted that what was a fairly constant plant, i.e., 
L. vulgaris, before the introduction of this disturbing element, is now, 
since the occurrence of Z. repens, proving to be a very variable plant 
in the direction and shape of the spur, and to some extent in the 
