Natural-Historical Collections. Bi A 
‘Botanical Notes contained in a Letter from G. A. WALKER ARNOTT, 
-Esa., F.L.S. &c. to the Plinian Society.—Now that the Plinian Society must have 
resumed its labours in the cause of Natural History, I beg leave to return it my 
best thanks for the copy of its transactions (1828-9,) I have lately received from 
it. Perhaps, however, by much the better mode of showing how much I ap- 
preciate the gift, is to state that I have carefully perused it, and therefore intend 
to take this opportunity of correcting a mistake of which I have heard elsewhere 
I have been the cause. I allude to Veronica filiformis being a British plant. 
Two plants are usually confounded under the above name: that which I have 
myself picked up in the south of France, and last spring at Henfield in Sussex, (where 
however, it had been previously observed by my friend and excellent botanist Mr. 
Borrer), and which I have distributed as the true V. filiformis, is identical with that 
found by Dr. G. Johnston in Berwickshire. This is V. fiiliformis of nearly all 
practical botanists and gardeners. It is Veronica Persica of Poiret sVeronica, 
&c. Buxbaum Cent. 1. p. 26, t. 40. f. 2; it is V. Byzantina Sibth. mot; and 
lastly, it is V. agrestis 8 byzantina Smith and Sibth. Hor. Greca. tab. 8, which 
rare work I had an opportunity last spring of carefully consulting on this and 
other subjects. This plant I now believe with Sir James, to be merely a luxu- 
riant state of V. agrestis. The sepals (calycine segments) are ovate. 
But the ouieinall authority for the V. filiformis is Vahl (iinum. pl. 1. p. 82), 
who made his description from Tournefort’s Herbarium, this being ‘‘ Veronica 
orientalis, foliis Heder terrestris flore magno,”’ Tourn. Coroll, 7. It is conse- 
queutly what Buxbaum figures Cent. 1, p. 25, tab. 40, £ 1; and is noticed by 
Smith in the Linn. Trans. 1. p. 185. This then is the true V. filiformis of 
Vahl, Willdenow, Smith, and Marschall.—Bieberstien, Hor. Taur. Cauce. I. p. 
15. The calycine segments or sepals are elliptic, lanceolate, obtuse, slightly three- 
nerved. Capsule obcordate, reticulated with veins.—Seeds slightly urceolate. It 
has not yet been found out of Asia: it was not even met with by Sibthorpe in 
Greece. 
The species of Melampyrum noticed also in the same page, (page 4 of the 
Plinian Transactions,) is, I fear, a bad species. I judge of a single poor specimen 
shown me as found by Dr. Johnston, and which is subsequently named (p. 33, 
and in Brewster’s journal for October 1829—p. 358), M. montanum. Although 
M. pratense be usually characterised with bractes, toothed at the base, yet that 
is merely a character of secondary importance: That species being amply, and 
only distinguished from M. sylvaticum by its corolla, which is fefo celo different 
in the two. Dr. Johnston’s plant differs in no way from Ji. pratense but by its 
smaller size and entire bractee; but even Smith, whose opportunities of ex- 
amining numerous varieties in the living state for many years previous to his 
death, were extremely limited, says in his Engl. Flora. III. page 125, that these 
parts are “‘ more or Jess toothed at the base ;” a variable mark such as this must 
be only taken as an auxiliary. I have only further to add, that M. pratense is 
extremely common in Ireland with the bractee entire, (and is then often im- 
properly confused with M. sylvaticum), and is thus net different from Dr. John- 
ston’s plant, but by being usually of a larger size than the more common state, 
whereas it is the reverse in M. montanum of Johnston. 
I send along with this a few species, such as I have still duplicates of, of 
Cistus and -Helianthemum : they are chiefly from the south of France; and I 
hope the Society will do me the honour of accepting them for their museum. 
Connected with them, the following two or three remarks on the British spe- 
cies may perhaps interest some of the members. 
1. The first species in Smith’s English Flora is Cistus marifolius; this he 
states to be C. marifolius Lin. I have not yet had an opportunity of examining 
the Linnzan herbarium on this genus, but assuredly our British plant is not C. 
marifolius of the Ist ed. of Linnzus,—that being the same with C. marifolius 
Cavan. ic. 2. t. 143, and also of Barrel. ic. t. 441, which Smith improperly re- 
fers to our species ; but with these exceptions, I agree with Sir James in all the 
synonyms he has adduced to his ©. marifolius. But it is obvious that if, as I 
VOL. I. 3B 
