Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/177

 155 HEKEFORDSHIEE RUBI. By the Rev. Augustin Ley.* In this Journal for 1894 (pp. 207-212) were recorded some plants which had been observed in Herefordshire since the publication of the Flora of Herefordshire in 1889. From these the Rubi were excluded ; the abundant fresh material which had accrued and still was accruing, the new light which was being thrown on old forms, and the changes in arrangement and nomenclature in progress in this genus, rendering it imperative to postpone any attempt to deal with it. The present paper proposes to supply this omission. Students of the genus will be prepared to find some obscurities and un- certainties still remaining ; but enough appears now to be known, and that with sufficient accuracy, to justify its publication; to which the new edition of the London Catalogue, together with the •'Notes" of Rev. W. Moyle Rogers upon it (Journ, Bot. 1895, 45, 77, 109), furnish an additional incentive. In 1894 Dr. Focke, the well-known authority upon this genus, visited England, and spent a few days in Herefordshire. His visit cleared up several obscurities, and brought to light more than one fresh species in the county. We wish to acknowledge the uniform readiness with which he placed his great knowledge at our service ; and not less that of Rev. W. Moyle Rogers, without which this paper could never have been attempted. In investigating this genus in Herefordshire, we have been compelled in one or two cases to adopt new names, and draw up new descriptions ; but this has in no case been done without the plant in question having been studied for a series of years, nor without exhausting all the available means of ascertaining whether it had been previously named and described on the Continent. The same may be said of a Monmouthshire form, of which we have taken this opportunity of publishing a description. Where no other reference is given, the present paper is the first record for a species. RuBus iD^us L. Flora of Herefordshire^ 84, 517. N'ative in woods and thickets, and widely distributed in all districts of the county. A variety with fruit yellow- white when ripe occurs at Shobdon Marsh in the north of the county, and at Westhide in the east. Var. b. oBTUsiFOLius Willd. Very rare, and noticed only at a single station. Hedge and garden border near a cottage, Sellack, near Ross ; 1892 and subsequent years. First notice, Journ. Bot. 1895, 46. The locality is one which I pass daily ; and I think it impossible that this hybrid could have escaped detection, had it existed there for any length of time previously to 1892. R. suBEREGTUs And. Flora, 517. Abundant at a single station
 * Published with the concurrence of the Eev. W. H. Purchas*