now I have shrunk from admitting it. It was first noticed
as deserving of attention at the Meeting of the British
Association at Bristol, in 1836, and was then erroneously
supposed to be U. provincialis (Bab. FI. Bathon. 73). It is
the U. nanus of most British collectors; for the true plant of
that name is very far from common, and the U. Gallii is
universally distributed throughout the south-western counties
of England, and constitutes a very large part of the Gorse
of Ireland. Mr. P. B. Webb remarked “ totam Hiberniam
operit.” It is also found in the south-west of Scotland. In
its larger form it closely resembles U. europaus, and is then
usually so called. It may be known from that species by its
flowering in the autumn, having a silky (not shaggy) calyx,
very small bracts, and glabrous, although strongly ciliate,
leaves (phyllodia); from U. nanus by its strong, erect, or
ascending, branches, long and strong but deflexed spines
(ramuli), wings rather longer than the keel of the flower,
although often seeming shorter than it from their somewhat
falcate shape, causing them to appear as if “ trying to embrace
by arching over the keel,” whereas in U. nanus they are very
nearly straight and flatly applied to the keel. The flowers
are usually of an orange-yellow tint, but the late Prof. E.
Forbes told us (Bot. Gaz. v. 1. 291) that that colour is not
constant even on the same bush. The U. nanus is almost
always quite prostrate below; but the flowering ends of its
branches turn up, and the whole forms an elastic carpet of a
few inches in thickness over the exposed heaths of the west:
U. Gallii does occasionally present a rather similar appearance,
but is nearly always very much more erect, and is
sometimes even 5 or 6 feet high.
The specimens from which our figure was made were sent
from Durdham Down, near Bristol, on Oct. 13, 1849, by
Mr. H. O. Stephens.—C. C. B.