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350 ON A NEW SPECIES OF OREOPANAX.
species, as if the biennial form were a divergent variety. Seeds wliich
&germinate
in spring, among corn or elsewhere, produce plants which
soon run up to a stem, and which (on that account?) have more
simple and less hispid leaves than are usually seen as radical leaves on
the biennial plant. As we see the species by the Thames side the
seeds germinate and become plants early in the autumn. These live
through the winter, and flower in the succeeding spring or summer.
They have a tuft of green and rough radical leaves, which are more
lyrate-pinnatifid than the leaves of the annual form. As the flowering-
stem rises from this winter tuft in the follow^ing spring, the leaves pro-
duced on it are smooth and become glaucous in hue, especially up-
wards. This biennial form seems to be the ti-ue type for the species
at any rate, it is so in our climate.
A confusion between the wild states or stocks of Napus and Rapa
is of ancient date. Possibly the crossing of names in the two lan-
guages may have somewhat contributed to the confusion in England,
where we cross-translate Rapa or Rapiim into T\\r-7iep (the old and
correct spelling), and Nap?is into Rape. Near two centuries ago Eay
thus w'rote under the head of " Napus sylvestris." ..." Est haec for-
tasse Rapum svlvestre non bulbosum Lobelii Adv. Carte planta ilia
quse in insula Eliensi seritnr, unde oleum Rajje Oil dictum exprimitur,
huic eadem videtur ;
proinde Rapum sylvestre et Napus sylvestris una
eademque fortasse planta sunt ; quod si diversse fuerint, quam pro
Napo sylvestri hactenus habuimus, Rapum potiiis sylvestre censenda
est : siquidem Napus sativa nobis peregrina est ; quidni et sylvestris ?"
('Synopsis,' ed. 2, p. 167.)
What Napus sylvestris may be it -is not in my power to say, never
having seen a w ild Rape ; but, if asked by any modern Ray to point
out what Rapum sylveslre is, ray reply would be,—the wild form of the
Turnip, the biennial campestris, the rough-leaved Thames-side Bras-
sica.
ON A NEW SPECIES OF OREOPANAX, PROM CHON-
TALES, NICARAGUA.
By Berthold Seemann, Ph.D., P.L.S., etc.
The genus Oreopanax is not numerously represented in Nicaragua.
In the pine region of the mountains of New Segovia and ]\Iatagalpa,
;