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TITE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
of the continent and are not infrequent even in England, especially in 
fields of Trifolium on light soils. Sundry authors, for example Rouy, 
want to distinguish these from hybrida, partly on account of the 
more developed ramification in the Neapolitan plant, partly because 
of Tenore’s description of the deep and acute toothing of the leaves 
of his species. Grola (Piante rar. FI. Piemonte, in Act. Sci. Turin, 
1908-1909, 238) holds the same opinion and even doubts whether 
any of the caulescent examples from upper and central Italy should 
he referred to Tenore’s hybrida. On the other hand, Loret ( loc. cit.) 
considers the specimens signed by Tenore himself that he has examined 
to be identical (ressemblent completement) with the var. caulescens 
Pocliebr. that grows in ditches near Montpellier, adding, “ les seuls 
mots prof unde dentatis ne sont pas applicables a toutes les feuilles 
inferieures (of the Montpellier examples), mais nous les avons vues 
varier sous ce rapport et se montrer assez souvent profondement 
dentees.” Loret has also annotated a French specimen in Herb. 
Kew.; “la piante de Tenore est exactement la notre. C’est une 
simple forme du perennis qui s’allonge dans les fosses lmmides. On 
a tous les intermediates en passant de la verge au fond du fosse.” 
If Beilis perennis were really a stemless plant this phenomenon could 
not occur as a mere consequence of better nutrition. 
It thus appears that the general conclusion of Dr. Carano’s paper 
has been anticipated, though he and his lady colleague have been the 
first to base that conclusion on a sure foundation. Yet, while re¬ 
ducing B. hybrida to a mere state of perennis, these authors recognise 
as true varieties or subspecies of perennis such remarkable forms as 
var . fagetorum Lacaita in Bull. Ort. Bot. Nap. iii. 281 (1913) with 
thin, almost transparent, glabrous leaves, that inhabits the mountain 
beech-forests above 1500 metres in the provinces of Avellino and 
Salerno, where the rainfall is very high, or var. margaritcefolia Huter 
Porta & Rigo (pro specie) from southern Calabria and Sicily: re¬ 
marking, nevertheless, that in favourable conditions these varieties, 
just like ordinary perennis , are capable of producing strongly caules¬ 
cent plants. 
“ THE THAMES-SIDE BRASSICA.” 
[The following note from Prof. L. H. Bailey’s paper on “ The 
Cultivated Brassicas ” published in Gentes Herbarum (seep. 125), 
will be interesting to British botanists, especially to those who 
possess the volumes of this Journal to which reference is made. It 
appears under Brassica Rapa. — Ed.] 
“ If the turnip ever self-sows or runs wild, we should expect the 
plant to be potentially biennial, making radical leaves in autumn 
from seeds discharged that year and sending up its flower-stalks the 
following season. This is what we find in the ‘ Thames-side Brassica’ 
that grew along the Thames river, England, many years ago, and was 
the subject of careful observation by Hewett C. Watson and reported 
in Seemann’s Journal of Botany in 1869 (vols. vii. [346] viii. 
[369]). . 
“This plant still persists, and I have recently collected it along the 
