Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/19

 THDNOGRAPII OF THE GENUS XIPHION. 9

the Exchange specimens of Dr. Boswell-Syme seem to fix the names differently, as far as one can judge from dried specimens only. Note also, that the Cheshire Bartaia is more a plant of the roadsides than of the cornfields.

Chenopodinm paganum, Eeich., and C. viride, L. (p. 553.) — Add pro- vince 9 for both, Knutsford.

"■Polygonum nodosum," (p. 555.) — Mere Mere Edge, Cheshire. A small, white-flowered semi-procumbent form, so named by an authority in whom much reliance may be placed. It bears a few glands. This is a very different state to the large, erect, dusky purple "nodosum" of our suburbs.

P. (aviculare) rurivagiim, .lord. — Cornfields, common. P. (avicidare) arewflsifz-MOT, Bor. (p. 556). Roadsides; common. Both plentifnl round Knutsford.

Popidiis (tremula) glabra, E. B. (p. 560.) — If you cut down a hedge of Aspens, the shoots froui the stoops, for the first year or two, bear leaves more like those of the black Poplar, and which you would never take for Aspen leaves if you had only an herbarium acquaintance with this tree. These leaves of the young rods are silky beneath. As the wood strength- ens and regains its tree size, the leaves become glabrous and assume the ordinary Aspen sbape.

Carex " involiita" (p. 591). — I have gathered from several places in Pickmere, Tabley, and near Knutsford, specimens to me identical with those distributed by the Exchange Club under this name. A Carex which is neither auipullacea nor vesicaria (though to me much nearer the former), will, I fancy, prove to have wide, though perhaps nowhere abundant, comital distribution in Cliester.

��MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS XIPHION. By J. G. Baker, F.L.S.

In the present paper I propose to attempt to characterize and classify a small group of Iridaceoi inhabiting the Mediterranean region, Orient, and Abyssinia, the published information respecting ivhich is very much scattered, and when brought together needs a considerable amount of sifting and addition in order to make it accurate and complete. The species are several of them old garden favourites, the synonymy of which might be traced back to Clusius, Parkinson, Besler, and the Bauhins. The group, taking it as a whole, scarcely differs from Iris except in the character of the rootstock, which in Xiphion is a bulb and in Iris a rhizome. Although in floral characters the two come so near to one another, yet, in making a key to the genera of this Order and its neigh- bours, it is so convenient to use the character of the rootstock as one of high importance, that I prefer in this matter to follow the example of Tournefort and Miller to thnt of Linnaeus, and to treat the two genera as distinct. It will be seen from the synonymy that in the matter of generic circumscription the views which have been taken by later authors are extremely diverse, and that Xiphion, as here defined, includes three of the genera of the most recent monographer of the Order.

Defmition. — Pcrianthium coroUinum, supcrum, tubo supra ovarium sub-

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