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typical." The 3-nate 1., with large, nearly equal, finely serrate lts., and the very short patent-branched, few-flowered pan., are the most characteristic features.

79. R. SERPENS Weihe.--"Differs from R. Bellardii chiefly in the shape of the 1. Stalked glands many, but mostly not, or but little, exceeding the felted hairs of the pan.-rachis; a few longer. Ped. long, finely aciculate. Stam. scarcely exceeding the styles. L. of the barren st. 3-nate and 5-nate-pedate. Lts. green and hairy on both sides, unequally serrate; term. 3-5 times longer than its stalk, ovate, cordate-ovate or oblong-obovate with emarginate base, cuspidate. Rather polymorphic; chiefly distinguishable by the short stalk of the term. It." Mostly confined to wooded hills. Found in great quantity on the hills above Tintern, Monm., by Rev. A. Ley, a small prostrate plant with very long lts. and a markedly flexuose short pan.

80. R. HIRTUS W. & K.-" St. prostrate from a low base, more rarely climbing, roundish, only indistinctly angled near the top, more or less hairy, densely covered with stalked glands, glandular bristles and acicles. L. principally 3-nate; in strong shoots mixed with 5-nate ones. Lts. coarsely and (in their upper part) often unequally serrate, dark green and with strigulose hairs above, paler, densely hairy on the nerves beneath; term. 3-4 times as long as its stalk, generally broadly elliptic from a rounded base, gradually narrowed to a short point, in other respects not unfrequently varying in shape. Flowering branches not seldom sessile, manyflowered; the normal ones, on the branches of the 2-year-old st., of moderate size, leafy below; rachides of the inflorescence violet or red-brown with stalked glands and many long glandular bristles. Sep. erect after flowering. Pet. oblong, white. Stam. numerous, rather exceeding the styles. Fr. globular, with small drupelets. Very polymorphic and widely distributed . . . the type does not occur in the W. German ranges and Switzerland, but countless indefinable vars. and closely related forms are to be found."

If we compare with this closing remark what Dr. Focke says on this species in his paper in Journ. Bot. 1890, p. 134, we shall not wonder at the difficulty which the plant as an aggregate causes us in England. We have, however, two marked forms which are somewhat widely distributed, and seem worth distinguishing as vars. :-

b. R. rotundifolius Blox. (non Weihe). R. amictus P. J. Muell. Engl. Bot. Suppl. to 3rd ed. pp. 117, 118.-St. deeply striate, hairy and (as are the many unequal declining prickles and acicles) yellowish; acicles and crowded stalked glands mostly very short. Lts. very thin and ultimately glabrous-looking beneath, though still clothed with minute white hairs; term. roundish elliptic, with short point. Pan.rachis and ped. with dense long hair and exceedingly mixed brownish armature, the largest prickles being remarkably long and slender; fl. of the upper branches often having long divaricate ped. Sep. with long points, ultimately clasping. A constant and abundaut form in thickets and bushy hedges in the Teign Valley, S. Dev. (where both pan. and lts. are often enormous), and in parts of N. Dev. Apparently very local in other counties.

c. R. Kaltenbachii Metsch.-St. more angular and deeply striate, with fewer hairs and acicles, many stalked glands and subulate declining prickles. L. more frequently 5-nate. Lts. narrower, obovate-acuminate, almost simply dentate-serrate, but with the larger teeth patent or recurved. Pan. large, pyramidal, drooping, with several many-flowered branches below mostly erect-patent, but sometimes patent or even divaricate; the upper branches 1- or fewflowered with many simple floral 1.; the rachis and ped. dark with purplish black, stalked glands. Usually a handsome plant with showy A. (Glost., Somers.).

R. pendulinus P. J. Muell. (Journ. Bot. 1886, p. 234) and R. velatus Lefr. (B. E. C. Rep. 1888, p. 211; 1889, p, 254) would perhaps be best kept out of our list for the present. The former seems hardly to differ from R. Bellardi except by its red styles, hairy carpels and 3-5-nate 1. The latter is nearer to R. hirtus, and (as represented by the Rev. A. Ley's Lyonshall specimen) has obovate lts. and a long, leafy, cylindrical pan. with pseudo-umbellate side branches and small pet.

B. Stalked glands of the pan. sunken, or at least shorter than the diameter of the ped.

81. P. TERETICAULIS P. J. Muell., B. E. C. Rep. 1888, p. 212; Engl. Bot., Suppl. 3rd ed., p. 113.- St. roundish, densely hairy, with many (mostly short) stalked glands and very slender, unequal, aciculate prickles and acicles. L. 3-5-nate. Lts. acutely serrate, green and hairy on both sides; term. broadly elliptic or obovate, acuminate, from nearly entire or subcordate base. Pan. either simply racemose or pseudo-umbellate-racemose below; the somewhat flexuose rachis and ped. densely felted and hairy with sunken blackish stalked glands, more rarely with appressed felt overtopped by the short stalked glands; long gland-tipped bristles and prickles very few or absent. Sep. only rarely patent or ascending, usually loosely reflexed even in fr. "Stam. generally rather shorter than the styles, longer in flat-country forms." Heathland nr. Sprowston, Norf.; in considerable quantity.

At first sight very like R. hirtus, but distinguished from it without difficulty by the far more hairy st., with its very slender aciculate prickles, and by the sunkeu, blackish, stalked glands on the pan.

82. R. OIGOCLADUS Muell. & Lefv. ? R. fusco-ater Angl. auct. (in part). "Near R. omalodontos Müll." Fl. Plym.; B. E. C. Rep. 1891, p. 332.-St. stout, roundish, deeply striate, glaucous, thinly clothed with very short hair and fairly many very short acicles and stalked glands. Prickles declining, much compressed; a few rather large. L. mostly 5-nate-pedate. Lts. rather thick, thinly hairy on both sides, grey-green beneath, finely serrate, all usually obovatecuspidate; term. broadly obovate-truncate with cuspidate or shortly cuspidate-acuminate point, from narrow, emarginate or subcordate base. Pan. often long; the ultra-axillary part either wholly racemose with subsessile term. fl. and long-pedicelled lateral fl., or with a few 2-3-flowered branches at the base of the racemose top;

the axillary branches distant, long, chiefly racemose; all the rachides and ped. grey-felted and hairy, with abundant sunken glands, an occasional stalked gland about equalling the hair, and rarely a gland-tipped acicle or two; the prickles mostly few, slender, declining. Sep. rather long-pointed, ashy grey, loosely reflexed in fr. Pet. rather large, obovate. Stam. exceeding the styles. Woods (Heref. and neighbouring counties; Dev.).

Strongly recalling R. mucronatus, but with much hairier st. and pan., and totally different armature.

b. R. Briggsii Blox. R. emersistylus P. J. Muell. ? Journ. Bot. 1869, p. 33; 1878, pp. 175, 176.--L. chiefly 3-nate, with lateral lts. gibbous and lobed below. Lts. finely but rather more doubly serrate, rounder and more acuminate; term. long-stalked, roundish ovate, acuminate, with deeply cordate base; lateral very similar. Pan. more branched and more leafy above, with roundish lts. like those of the st. Sep. mostly clasping in fr. Henfield, Suss.; Bickleigh Vale, Dev. Latterly regarded by Mr. Briggs as possibly only a very strongly marked abnormal form.

c. R. Bagnalli Blox. Journ. Bot. 1878, pp. 175, 176.--Very like var. b., but with somewhat slenderer and more declining subulate prickles, a good many 5-nate-pedate 1. with all the lts. remarkably similar, thinner and less hairy; and a narrower pan., which is less leafy above and has rather distant, erect-patent, small-flowered branches. In several places in Warw.

These singular vars. seem (as Mr. Baker suggested in Journ. Bot. 1886, p. 75) to connect this group with R. dumetorum W. & N.

Group 9. CESII (= CORYLIFOLII Focke). St. creeping or climbing from a low arch, glaucous, roundish or slightly angular, with many rooting branches in autumn. Prickles mostly slender, often only aciculate. Intermediate acicles and stalked glands usually few (except in some dumetorum forms); sometimes absent. Lts. broad; bas. hardly stalked. Stipules more or less broadened in the middle. Pan. usually rather short; its prickles mainly aciculate; its fl. large and its fr. often abortive, or maturing only a few large drupelets. Flowering early and late.

If we except some of the plants that go to make up the aggregate R. dumetorum (a link between the other CSI and the two preceding groups), this is a very natural group of closely allied forms,--all the more difficult to distinguish from each other for that reason, as Prof. Babington has pointed out. Whether the intermediate plants included under R. dumetorum are best placed here (as by Focke, who combines with them our corylifolians), or reckoned with the glandulose brambles, as apparently suggested by Mr. Warren (now Lord de Tabley) in his paper in Journ. Bot. 1870, or are better separated from each other and divided between the KOEHLERIANI and CESII (as by Babington), is of course open to question. I can only say that the arrangement I have chosen (chiefly, as will be seen, on Mr. Warren's lines) appears to me on the whole the most natural and most convenient.

Chiefly found in hedges and waste places and on walls. Especially abundant on clay and chalk soils, where, with I. rusticanus,

they usually prevail to the exclusion of most other species. Much rarer on gravel and sand.

83. R. DUMETORUM W. & N. Journ. Bot. 1870, pp. 149-154, 169 -176.-St. usually somewhat angular and hairy, with numerous unequal (mostly strong) prickles and some (often many) acicles and stalked glands. L. chiefly 5-nate-pedate. Lts. thick, acutely and often doubly serrate, green on both sides, paler and softly pubescent or felted beneath, more or less acuminate and imbricate; bas, subsessile. Pan. compound; rachis felted and hairy, usually very strongly armed with unequal prickles, ucicles and stalked glands. Sep. grey-felted, usually erect in fr., but sometimes only patent or loosely reflexed. Pet. large, roundish, hardly clawed, usually overlapping. Stam. exceeding styles.

Separated from species of the KOEHLERIANI and BELLARDIANI by the subsessile bas. lts., large roundish pet. and large drupelets, and generally by a somewhat casian aspect. Distinguished from other CESII pretty readily by the far more glandular and aciculate st. and pan.-rachis, and further to some extent by the more regular and more compound pan. ; but, it must be owned, the difficulty of determination is sometimes serious enough, and is liable to be not a little aggravated by the freedom with which many of the forms hybridise.

The following appear to be the best marked of the English forms or vars. of this species:

a. R. ferox Weihe. R. horridus Schultz.-St. subglabrous, with a good many acicles and stalked glands (mostly short). Prickles very crowded on mature st., straight, much compressed, short-based, with long slender points. L. almost wholly 5-nate, broad. Term. lt. roundish obovate-acuminate, long-stalked, with truncate-emarginate or entire base. Pan. usually short, and chiefly contracted into a rather broad rounded top, armed like the st. Sep. ovate, suddenly contracted into a long point, clasping in fr., grey-felted with white margin. Pet. usually pink. St. and pan. remarkably variable in stoutness and in the amount of armature at different stages of the same plant; but when quite mature stouter and with more densely crowded prickles thau in any other form. Widely but somewhat thinly distributed.

b. R. diversifolius (Lindl.)-Very like R. ferox, but with prickles less crowded, more unequal and longer based, the term. It. less roundish and more shortly stalked, and so all the lts. more frequently imbricate; while the pan. is usually "long, leafy nearly to the top, with very short axillary, few-flowered, subracemose branches, often springing from every axil of the shoot." The sep. also are ultimately reflexed (though usually erect for a time) and the pet. white. Widely distributed, and locally abundant. R. intensus Blox. seems to be a small strongly armed state of this.

c. pilosus W. & N.--All the stems hairy and strongly armed. Prickles subpatent, from compressed bases, long, rather slender, passing gradually into crowded acicles and stalked glands. Pan. leafy nearly to the top; axillary branches longer and more distant than in diversifolius, corymbose, many-flowered. Sep. loosely

clasping or erect-patent. "The only member of the group with distinctly setose-hairy st." Leic. and Warw. Apparently nearest to diversifolius, but unknown to me.

d. R. scabrosus (P. J. Muell.). R. tuberculatus Bab.--St. bluntly angular, striate, slightly hairy, with fewer and inconspicuous acicles and stalked glands. Prickles less unequal, with stouter cushion-like bases. L. 3-5-nate-pedate, doubly dentate-serrate. Term. lt. roundish elliptic with rather short point; bas. (of 3-nate 1.) bilobate. Pan. with corymbose-truncate ultra-axillary top and few-flowered ascending axillary branches. Sep. loosely clasping. Pet. pinkish. Apparently somewhat widely distributed, but variable.

e. concinnus Baker.-St. rather slender, striate, with few hairs and very scattered armature; the long prickles and larger acicles with broad compressed bases, the stalked glands and small acicles few. L. chiefly 3-nate. Lts. dark green above, much paler beneath, usually smaller and more finely and regularly serrate than in the other forms; term. roundish ovate or somewhat obovate-rhomboidal with very slender cuspidate-acuminate point. Pan. elongate, considerably glandular, rather closely felted, with narrow ultra-axillary top and long distant patent-erect branches below. Sep. patent or loosely reflexed. Pet. smaller, pinkish. Smaller, neater, more felted and less prickly than diversifolius; approaching much nearer to corylifolius, though still far more glandular, and with different prickles. Prickles all remarkably patent and lts. concave. A wellmarked form, at all events as it occurs in Derb. Chiefly northern, so far as I have been able to observe.

(To be continued.)

THE MYCETOZOA OF SOUTH BEDS AND NORTH HERTS. BY JAMES SAUNDERS.

IN continuation of the papers on the flora of South Beds which have appeared in this Journal at intervals for the last ten years, the following list of Mycetozoa is given as a first instalment. The species observed in the contiguous portions of Hertfordshire are also enumerated. Some hundreds of specimens have been collected, and a still larger number have been observed in the field, but only two or three stations at most are given for each county for the ubiquitous forms.

The list contains some noteworthy species. The first place may be accorded to Chondrioderma testaceum, which is a new British record; but perhaps there is more interest attached to the finding of the plasmodium stage of Badhamia inaurata, the discovery of which was a desideratum.* It was first noticed by my son Edgar in February,

[The plasmodium of Badhamia pallida Berk. is referred to by Rev. M. J. Berkeley as having been noticed by Badham at East Bergholt, in March, 1851 (Trans. Linn. Soc. xxi. t. 19, p. 154). Examination of the type specimen in the Kew collection proves this to be the same species as Badhamia inaurata of Currey.-A. L.]

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