On the Country of Cliococca tenuifolia. By CHARLES C. BABINGTON, Esq., M.A., F.L.S. I may state that our late curator, Mr. A. Biggs, always said that the seeds of this plant were obtained from the interior of New Holland, by a person who was not a botanist, and who was, at the time of gathering them, far beyond the settled country in pursuit of bush-rangers. At the time when I published the account of the genus Cliococca, I had confidence in the correctness of Mr. Bigg's memory, but he has since fallen into such a state of health that it becomes quite possible that he may have committed an error, and that the seeds did really come from S. America. 1 trust that this is a sufficient excuse for my having fallen into an error, if that is the case. I have so great confidence in the opinion of Dr. Walker Arnott, that I shall now believe that Cliococca tenuifolia and Linum selaginoides are very probably the same species. My description was drawn from the living plant, and I therefore feel certain of its accuracy. Lamarck's plant may perhaps be another species of the new genus to which some other Lineæ may be referable. These are points which I most willingly leave in the very able hands of Dr. Arnott. CHARLES C. BABINGTON. St. John's College, Cambridge, Corrections of various errors in Mr. Lees' paper on the Enanthe pimpinelloides, Lachenalii and silaifolia. By HEWETT C. WATSON, Esq. WITH mingled surprise and regret I have read a paper from the pen of Mr. Lees, in the December No. of the 'Phytologist' (Vol. ii, pp. 354-365), upon the three species of Enanthe which were so long misunderstood and confused together in this country under the two names of pimpinelloides and peucedanifolia. I was surprised to see so much looseness of statement and positive error again brought into the discussion, after the progress made by other botanists towards an accurate elucidation of those plants. And I regretted to see the unfriendly and ungenerous animus which too obviously urged on the pen and distorted the writer's judgement; and the effect of which is far more likely to be felt in a recoil upon himself, than in any damage to the individual against whom the battery was so awkwardly worked. The uncertainties respecting these three species of Enanthe had been brought into a narrow compass by the papers of Mr. Ball, Mr. Babington and myself; each of whom had successively elucidated some of the points previously obscure; although each in turn had still left some unsettled questions to be answered by others. Mr. Lees now comes forward at the eleventh hour, when the doubts are nearly all solved and settled, and contrives to write the longest paper hitherto printed on the subject; so much easier is it, to write a diffuse paper, than to give really useful information in succinct terms. In that paper Mr. Lees writes as if almost nothing had been done by others-states over again many things previously made public-commits several notable blunders and adds very little indeed to our previous stock of real knowledge. Mr. Babington or Mr. Ball would have told in a single page all that was new and worth recording in the paper referred to. Surely, it could not be held necessary for Mr. Lees to restate those circumstances which had already been more accurately or more fully stated by preceding writers. And it was not simply unnecessary, but highly mischievous, to put forth unqualified statements, in the character of general truths, notwithstanding that facts previously on record, and certified on sufficient authority, proved some of those statements to be quite incorrect, and showed that others of them could be true only to a limited extent. Taking the three former papers (those of Ball, Babington and Watson), in connexion, the most important points left uncertain may be thus put into the form of queries: 1. Is the peucedanifolia of Smith an identical species with the peucedanifolia of Pollich?—or, with the silaifolia of Bieberstein ?—or, a third species distinct from both? 2.-What is the form of the leaflets of the truly radical leaves of Smith's peucedanifolia ?-and, what is the form of its mature fruit? Nothing whatever is attempted by Mr. Lees, in the way of answer to these queries, or the nomenclature of the species. He has a passing allusion to the names, in a foot-note on page 356, but this allusion is penned in such terms, as almost unavoidably to force us upon a supposition that Mr. Lees has yet to learn the recognized principles of botanical nomenclature. He thinks it "preferable to retain" the name of " peucedanifolia of Pollich," and yet he assigns no reason for a preference, which has a weight of authority against it vastly greater than any in favour of it. According to existing knowledge, and the established rules of nomenclature, the question may be held now almost entirely reduced to a choice between "silaifolia" and "Smithii." Should it hereafter appear that Bieberstein's plant is only a variety of Pollich's, in such case the earlier name "peucedanifolia" must be resumed; but so long as they are esteemed two species, our British plant must take the name of that reputed species to which it truly belongs, and this is almost certainly the silaifolia of Bieberstein. The name of "Smithii" was suggested only as a temporary designation, to fall into oblivion, provided the British species could be referred satisfactorily to any other described species. After that name was suggested, I met with a very strong additional reason for believing the British plant to be really the silaifolia, as was explained in a supplementary paper on the Enanthe peucedanifolia of Smith (Phytol. ii. 94). Taking that reason in connexion with the specific character and references given in Bieberstein's own work, and the papers of Ball and Babington, it seems to my judgment that every botanist, competent to give an opinion upon the matter, will hold it "preferable to retain " the name assigned to the British plant by Ball. But in this paper, to prevent confusion in contrasting the British against the continental silaifolia, I will use the name of "Smithii" to distinguish the former. In reference to the second queries, Mr. Lees is more successful, for here he affords one small item of information, which was much wanted. He writes that the radical leaves of Smithii "agree entirely with the stem-leaves, namely, bipinnate, with acute, entire, lanceolate or linear pinnæ" (p. 362). If correct, this is useful information; because no opportunity for ascertaining the character of the true radical leaves had occurred to Ball, Babington, or myself. It adds another fact towards showing the identity of our Smithii with the silaifolia of Koch's Synopsis. I had described the leaflets of the lower stem-leaves, as being "linear-lanceolate acute, scarcely broader than those of the upper leaves;" and had commented upon this character as a difficulty, when compared with Bieberstein's statement that the lower leaves of his silaifolia are much abbreviated and dilated-"valde abbreviatis atque dilatatis." It may be, however, that the "valde” is not meant to extend to "dilatatis ;" and that this strong expression must be construed only with reference to long and narrow lower leaves in Pollich's peucedanifolia. Adopting this construction, and my own term "subcylindrical" to express the character of the fruit (as presently to be explained), there will remain no serious objection against a belief of the British Smithii being truly identical with the silaifolia of Bieberstein and of Koch. Mr. Lees describes and figures the fruit of Smithii; and here it is necessary to correct and limit his description. He describes the fruit "oblong, contracted below." Mr. Ball said "clavate, and somewhat contracted below." I called it "subcylindrical." Here we see three different observers using as many different terms. The fact is, the fruits vary considerably in form, even in the same umbel. I have before remarked of the three species, "while immature, the fruits of all are contracted downwards" (Phytol. ii. 15); and Ball expressly states that he describes fruits not fully mature. Apparently this form of immaturity is retained in some of the full-grown fruits of Smithii; as is certainly the case with those of Lachenalii. The exterior fruits, in the umbellule of Smithii, are rarely of equal thickness from base to summit, when full grown, but not being quite equal throughout, and moreover also somewhat angular, the term "cylindrical" requires the qualifying prefix "sub." In the interior of the umbellule, the fruits are compressed one by another, and (seemingly through their mutual pressure) they assume a rore angular and tapering form. Such a fruit is represented in the figure given by Mr. Lees; and which is, indeed, more clavate than oblong. I presume, however, that the form of the exterior fruits should be considered typical or normal. Apparently this is also the opinion of Koch, who writes of silaifolia "fructibus cylindricis." The exterior fruits are nearly cylindrical, the interior being oblong-clavate and angular. Having thus gleaned from the paper of Mr. Lees, and applied to scientific use, the little information of value which it can be said to have added to previously recorded knowledge, I next ask myself the question, 'Shall the inaccuracies of the paper be left to that inevitable fate which ultimately befalls all error? or is it better at once to qualify and correct them, in order to check the temporary mischief consequent on the propagation of errors?' There is inconvenience in the latter course. Easy as it is, to state simple facts in concise terms, it is by no means equally easy to apply them in the correction of errors and inaccuracies, without adding quotations and explanations which would greatly extend the necessary amount of text. I will therefore not attempt to quote in detail, and then to correct, all the inaccuracies and untenable statements which occur in the paper of Mr. Lees. Instead of pursuing that course, I will mention some of the circumstances which seem calculated to place the subject of discussion in a more correct position; though even this will unavoidably lead to repetitions and explanations, which have become necessary only through the faults of Mr. Lees' paper. As before explained in the 'Phytologist,' the misapplication of the names "pimpinelloides" and "peucedanifolia" to the British species known to Smith, was mentioned in the 'British Flora' of 1838, or some earlier date; and it is to be regretted that the author of that work did not then substitute the names "Lachenalii" and "silaifolia" in their stead. The (reputedly) true Linnean pimpinelloides was certainly in some British herbaria before that date; but its various collectors had apparently always mistaken it for Lachenalii - in other words, for Smith's pimpinelloides. There is no reason to suppose that any British specimen of the true pimpinelloides had come under the examination either of Smith or of Hooker. In or about 1842, specimens of Lachenalii, correctly so labelled, were sent to the Botanical Societies of London and Edinburgh, from the locality of Michelfeld, near Basle; a locality which brings the plant home, or nearly so, to the 'Flora Badensis' of Gmelin. Probably these specimens came under the eyes of Mr. Babington, who could appreciate their value. He had retained Smith's nomenclature in the Edinburgh Catalogue' of 1841, but substituted the name "Lachenalii" (instead of "pimpinelloides") in his Manual, which was published in May, 1843. The specimens received by the London Society, at the same time, passed through the hands of their curator; the identity of these specimens with Smith's pimpinelloides remaining unobserved there, until I stumbled upon one of them accidentally, late in 1844, while looking out something else. As for Smithii, whenever found in England, it appears to have been rightly referred to Smith's peucedanifolia. But many botanists fell into the error of referring their examples of Lachenalii also to the peucedanifolia of Smith. It was obvious to me that such was the case, even some years before I had seen a specimen of Smithii. But my herbarium then containing only imperfect specimens of Lachenalii, and neither of our other two species, I saw the error without being able to correct it properly. There is a passage on page 411 of the 'New Botanist's Guide' (1837), in which the misnomers are mentioned; but, of course, the "pimpinelloides" there spoken of was that of Smith and English Botany,' not the species now believed to be that of Linnæus. No instance has come under my knowledge, where Smithii was mistaken for Lachenalii: the errors were always the converse of this. When did the Linnean pimpinelloides become known as a British plant? In May of 1840, I had brought a young plant of it, from the Isle of Wight, to my garden, where that specimen and its descendants |