Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/541

 TWO NEW BRAMBLES FROM IRELAND. 505 the angles, always small and not unfrequently passing into acicles on the faces. Leaves mostly 5-nate-pedate, yellowish in exposure, remarkably hroad owing to the exceptionally large intermediate leaflets and the short stalk of the termineJ one, with petiole about one -third shorter than terminal leaflet and only slightly exceeding the basal ; stipules very narrow, ciliate. Leaflets stronghj imbricate as a rule, plicate, rugose, shining and strigose above, paler and usually glabrous beneath except on midrib and nerves, which have a few short shining hairs ; terminal about four times longer than its stalk, very broadly ovate with acuminate point and emarginate or subcordate base ; intermediate nearly as large and similar, though of course with narrower base ; basal oval, small, very shortly stalked; all coarsely biserrate. Panicle very lax below with long strongly ascending racemose or subracemose branches and 1-3-flowered patent or patent- erect ones in the ultra-axillary part ; raclds rather flexuose, felted above and clothed throughout with dense fine hair, numerous small acicular prickles, and a good many sunken and subsessile glands ; leaves 3-nate below with broad leaflets, the floral ones (1 to 3) simple and broadly ovate, or 3-tid; bracts many, usually 3-fid, pedimcles and pedicels rather long, grey-felted. Sepals grey-green, white-margined in bud, clothed like the rachis but with more numerous sunken glands and (usually) acicles, reflexed after the petals fall but soon ascending, red at base within. Petals white, rather small with long claws, distant. Stamens white, erect, not greatly exceeding green styles and soon closing iiti'''"OA them. Carpels apparently glabrous. -^ • This is the bramble referred to by Messrs. Marshall and Shool- bred, its discoverers, in p. 253 of the present volume of this Journal, as " a striking plant found at Oughterard, Maam, Clonbur, and Cong." It was at first thought by me to be a glabrous form of li. hirtifolius Muell. & Wirtg., while Dr. Focke felt inclined rather to associate it with B. Salteri Bab. Early in last summer Mr. Marshall was able to repeat and extend his previous exploration of the district, and he then came to the conclusion that this is one of the most general and constant bramble forms occurring through- out the parts of E. Galway and W. Mayo which lie to the north and the north-east of Lough Corrib. The above description has been made from a large series of specimens that he kindly sent me, fresh and dried, from several localities, in 1895 and 1896. I agree with him in thinking it a very distinct form, which probably does not occur in Great Britain, though it may prevail widely in the west of Ireland. If its nearest ally with us is R. Salteri, it yet differs con- siderably from that species as represented by the only specimens I have seen (from Apse Castle Wood and Aconbury). In its leaves and stem, and its silvaticus-like armature especially, it is con- spicuously different. B. Salteri itself, however, is still among our most obscure and ill-defined species, and it may yet prove to be nothing more than a local form. It is therefore hardly possible to say at present what other brambles may be rightly included under it as varieties or subspecies. Journal of Botany. — Vol. 34. [Dec. 1896.] 2 l