Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/542

 506 TWO NEW BRAMBLES FROM IRELAND. R. iricus, sp. n. (or var. n.). Stem stout, angular, deeply striate or subsulcate, fuscous in exposure, with many fine white hairs stellate and single. Prickles many, rather unequal, almost con- fined to angles, patent or slightly declining, with large triangular base. Leaves lanje, coriaceous, chiefly 5-nate-pedate, with petiole nearly equalling terminal leaflet, and very long ciliate stipules. Leaflets hardly imbricate, subrugose, somewhat hairy and dull deep green above, with shining white hairs on the veins beneath and usually felted when young ; termiiial ovate or slightly ohovate with gradually acuminate point and emarginate base, quite four times longer than its stalk ; intermediate large and nearly similar ; hasal broad, very shortly stalked; all coarsely and irregularly toothed. Panicle most remarkably stout and broad, with distant axillary often composite branches below and a broadly cylindrical-truncate ultra- axillary top, many of the upper branches being cymose-umbellate, with 1-2-flowered peduncles intermixed. Rachis and long upper side branches nearly straight, clothed with dense yellowish-grey villous hairs and felt extending to the sepals, with small slender prickles in the ultra-axillary part and strong unequal ones below. Leaves very large, 5-nate and 3-nate below, with an occasional simple or 8-tid one above ; all thick and mostly felted beneath. Bracts many, large, usually 3-fid and more or less gland-ciliate. Sepals ashy- felted inside and out, reddening at base within and yellowish where the long hairs are crowded at the base without, with long acuminate point, strongly reflexed at first (as in all my specimens). Petals large, broadly ohovate, clawed, bright pink. Stamens bright pink, nearly erect, exceeding styles. Fruit not seen. First observed in 1895 with R. hesperius in Galway and Mayo by Messrs. Marshall and Shoolbred, and referred to by them as "allied to R. mollissimus and R. Schlechtejidalii" in p. 253 of this year's Journal. When Mr. Marshall revisited the district last summer he sent me excellent and abundant fresh specimens, which I was able to examine and make full notes on before I pressed them. He found the plant in great quantity, especially about Maam, but also at Oughterard, Cong and Clonbur, north of Lough Corrib, and near Lough Mask, to the south and south-east. Most striking and well-marked as this splendid plant is, and always recognizable, I should suppose, at a glance, I have to own to some difficulty in keeping it specifically distinct from my R. mollissimus ; the N. Devon and Carnarvon forms of which especially approach it closely. It is, however, not only very much stouter and more densely hairy than R. mollissimus, with brighter pink petals and stamens ; but the leaflets also are utterly different in texture and considerably narrower, gradually acuminate and emarginate-based (instead of roundish-obovate-cuspidate and entire-based) ; while the prickles below the ultra-axillary top are very strong instead of being exceptionally weak, and the^^stamens seem relatively short and m.ore erect. ' "'  ' It is to be hoped that Irish botanists will before long be able to tell us more of the distribution of these two new brambles from Ireland, for the discovery of which we are indebted to Messrs. Marshall and Shoolbred.