Abstract
IN NATURE (November 14, p. 711) Mr. Stuart Thompson alludes to the woolly-headed thistle—Cirsium eriophorum—being found at Chewton Keynsham, and remarks that it was from specimens gathered there in 1922 that Dr. Petrak named it sub-sp. britannicum. As a matter of fact, Dr. Petrak monographed the genus in 1912 (“Bibliotheca Botanica,” Heft 78, Stuttgart), which I reviewed in the Report of the Botanical Society and Exchange Club, 361, 1913. There Petrak describes seven subspecies, and he chose an inept name (Cirsium britannicum), since eriophorum is limited to England (Sibbald's Scottish record was erroneous), and there was already C. britannicum of Scopoli, but that is heterophyllum and therefore invalid. So far from the subspecies being due to a Somerset specimen, Petrak's details of his drawing are made from a Huntingdonshire plant.
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DRUCE, G. Cirsium eriophorum . Nature 117, 305 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/117305d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/117305d0
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