-y i 
f 420 J ie [May 1, 
MONTHLY BOTANICAL REPORT. 
‘YING at one time to the indisposition of the Reporter, and at another to the necessity 
of noticing other works, our obfervations on the periodical botanical puolications have, 
failen behind hand; we shail now attemipt to pay our arrears, 
The four last numbers of the Botanical Magazine contain, in Mr. Gawiler’s.department, a 
white-flowered varicty of Iris sidirica as it is here called; we have some dovbt, however, whe- 
ther it be not really a distinct, though a very nearly rela'ed, species. There is some difference 
in the form of the internal petals, which are more dilated upwards, and contracted into a 
narrower claw below ; they are likewise less erect and blunter pointed; but whether these 
differences are constant, we cannot positively decide.—Ornithogalum fhyrssides, drawn from 
a specimen containing so few flowers as hardly to deserve its name of thyrse-flowering.— 
Lilium corcolor, a lily of very modern introduction from China, the country of splendid 
flowers.—Wacliendosfia brevifolia differs from birsuta especially, but not solely, in the colour 
of its flowers, which are singularly larid.—-Amaryllis ornata,-here called crimson and white 
famaryllis, a name certainly not very appropriate to the coloured figure, in which the 
flowers are striped with a dark purple. Mr. Gawler has seemingly with reluctance renounced 
his former opinicn, that this, and the white- flowered amaryllis from Sierra Leone, are the 
same species; though no cultivator doubts of their being really distinct. In these very na- 
tural families, the lines of demarkatioa, both between the genera and the species, are often 
so very feint, as to elude the eye of the botanist, or rather tlie touchs*one of his definitions; 
the differences consisting more in innumerable little points, than in marked botanical charac- 
ters; yet these points of difference, from their great number, may be equal in value to a ‘ew 
more decided distinctions. It not unfrequently happens, from this circumstance, that the bo- 
tanist is puzzled to find a difference where a common observer scarcely sees any similarity — 
Antholyza Zthiopica, the smaller variety, and Ixia erecta, var. /utea odorata, both stand in 
the same predicameut, though considered by the botanist as mere varieties, the cultivator, 
who attends more tothe tout epseméle than to legitimate characters, would not hesitate to decide 
that they were essentially different. In the iatter plant, besides the fragrance of the blessom, 
which is without fcent in the other varieties of the Ixia erecta; the tude of the corolla is 
longer in propertion to the limb, the ftigmas are more erect; and the whole plant is far mo.e 
robust than inthe white. Amaryilis revoluta is a very fine figure of a species before pud- 
lished in the Magazine from a Jess perfect specimen,—-Of Sanseviera @uincensis, and Dracaena 
evata, we should have nothing to say, were it not to correct an error of the press, which” 
will mislead the unskilful. The former should have been numbered 1179, and the latter 
41180; these numbers being reversed, the name of the one is of course applied to the other. 
Tt may be remarked, however, that Dracena svgtq has never been before deferibed or figured: 
it was difcovered by Afzelius in Africa. —A pink-coloured variety of Scilla (commonly Hya- 
cinthus) serotina; to make amends for giving us a mere variety, one however which has 
never been be'ore described, Mr. Gawler: has here given us a synoptical table of Scilla, 
Hyaciathus, and Muscari, considered as one genus, divided, for convenience only, into 
tfiree.—Narcissus 5ifronus, before considered by Mr. Gawler as a mere variety of N. calathinus, 
but now raised into a distinct species. The author, however, surmises that it may probably 
be a hybrid production between Fonguilla and calathinus.—Narcissus bico‘or, nearly related to 
N. Pseudo-narcissus and N, italicus, heretofore considered by the writer himself as a variety of 
id papyraceus. 
We have thought it test to place together the plants belonging to the natural orders of 
ensate and liliaceez, tie letter-press to which is written by Mr. Gawler. And, althouga 
we doubt not but thet many of the purchasers of the Botanical Magazine are dissatisfied with 
having sd large a pryportion of the work, as one half, occupied by these orders exclusively, 
yet we Cannot but express our hearty approbation of the plan. These plants have been more 
cultivated tian most others, ard far less understood by botanists, of whom they may justly be 
jeemec the opprobriem. The French botamsts have had the same view of the matter, anda 
very magnificent work in folio has been for some time publishing in Paris on these orders, gon- 
tained under tne denomination of Liliaczts. But whoever will take the pains to compare this 
work with the Botanical Magazine, will at once perceive how. much the best hotanists are 
at a loss in this department, and how much more luminous end sat*sfactery is the information 
contained in the fatter work. We proceed now to enumerate the other plants given us by 
the editor in Number 264, 265, 265, and 267.——Celastrus pyracanthus : this is a good draw- 
‘ing from a remarkable fine specimen which grew in the open air, against a southern wall in 
the garcen of Edmund Granger, esq. cf Exeter. Dr. Sims, by shewing how this shrub varies 
with regard to its foliage, and in being with or without spines, has gone a good way towards 
reconc ling the very contradictory accounts of botanists respecting it.—Trifolium canescens: 
a plant hardly known to botanists but by Tournefort’s name, introduced from Moynt Cau- 
casus by Mr. Loddiges —Stapelia picta, a new species of a genus so elaborated by the late 
Mr. Basson. Jacquin endeavoured to convince Linnzus chat the natural order of Asclepiadex 
properly belonged to the ciass Decandria, instead of Pentandria, where he had placed these 
plants: and more lately, Dr. Smita has asserted that the saime.are reaily gynandrous. Both 
these opimions are controverted by Dr. Sims3 who defends Linnzeys upon the ground, that all 
. anthers 
