2 GO 
THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
E. lusitanicum. Underneath this central rosette there issue lateral 
steins, arranged in a circle, to the number of 20 to 50 according 
to the strength of the individual. Each of these, when detached, 
might on a cursory inspection be mistaken for E. vulgare , if it were 
not for their curvature. The colour of the corollas is typically bril¬ 
liant cobalt-blue with purple-pink stamens, but varies to almost 
“ Eton ” pale blue and to glorious violet-purple. The corolla is 
larger than in italicum or in lusitanicum , not quite so big as in the 
large-dowered forms of vulgare , and less irregular than in the latter; 
in some cases it might be called sub-regular; a similar variation in 
the form of the corolla is well known in E. rosulatum , in which I 
have observed it in my own garden. The exserted stamens are very 
unequal in length with quite glabrous filaments. It is not a strigose 
plant; the leaves are acute, full green, not greyish, covered with a 
uniform homomorphous pubescence. 
Gay’s MS. description of a specimen in his herbarium at Kew, 
which I have quoted in my paper on Echium salmanticum in Journ. 
Linn. Soc., xliv. 378 is excellent. 
I was told by a woman on the spot that the plant, which is con¬ 
spicuous enough to attract attention wherever it grows, is very 
plentiful at her native place, the Banos de Montemayor, which lies 
just within the province of Salamanca. This is some slight confirma¬ 
tion of the opinion I have previously expressed, that E. polycaulon 
Boiss. is identical with the doubtful E. salmanticum Lag. Dr. Bal- 
guerias, of the Department of Botany at Madrid, kindly made a 
search for me, but was unable to trace any original specimen of 
Lagascava. 
The local name of this Echium at La Bazagona is Pincuinela ; a 
farmer told me that it is an excellent remedy for tooth-ache—the 
flowers with the calyces are picked off and steeped in alcohol for 
three or four days; when the spirit has completely absorbed the 
colour, the liquor is drained off and applied to the gums. I suspect 
that the virtue is in the alcohol more than in the Pincuinela. 
CAPTAIN COOK’S MSS. 
On March 21, at Sotheby’s, a number of MSS. associated with 
Captain James Cook were disposed of by auction. They were sold by 
order of the trustees of Mr. H. W. E. Bolckow, of Manton Hall, 
Manton, near Cleveland, Yorkshire, in which village Cook was born 
in 1728. The field in which his father’s cottage stood is called 
“ Cook’s Garth ” ; in the church is a monument to the great explorer’s 
memory, and in the churchyard is the tombstone of Mary Walker, 
who taught young Cook to read, his father being a da} r -labourer in 
her service. Bolckow, a native of Germany, who came to England 
and died in 1878, came to England in 1827 and realized a large 
fortune as an iron manufacturer at Middlesbrough. The history of 
the MSS. is to some extent involved in mystery—no reference is made 
to the diary in Admiral Wharton’s preface to the transcription of 
