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Tralee Bay, the locality being about a mile from the sea. This is most probably an addition to the Flora of Kerry; for though the fern is recorded in the Supplement to the Cybele Hibernica as growing on two old castles near Cahirciveen, a search on one of these castles last summer failed to discover the plant, while Mr. A. G. More tells me he has seen no previous Kerry specimens. It grew intermingled with A. Adiantum-nigrum. A. lanceolatum seems unaccountably rare in Ireland, its only other recorded locality being about Kinsale, Co. Cork.--R. W. SCULLY.

SURREY PLANTS.-In some "Additional Notes on S. W. Surrey Rubi," published in the Journal (1891, p. 341), R. Drejeri Jens. is recorded on the authority of the Rev. W. Moyle Rogers. This was at a time when little was known of Drejeri in this country, and a good description was not available. Mr. Rogers has since informed me that the plant in question must certainly go to R. fuscus W. & N. Readers are requested to make this correction in their copies of the Journal.--JAMES W. WHITE.

SHROPSHIRE RUBI.-Little has been done at the brambles of this county since Leighton worked at them; consequently, with the advance made since his day in the knowledge of the genus, there is room for making some improvement on the list in his Flora. In a single wood, called Vales Wood, near Ruyton XI Towns, I found over a dozen different Rubi, including R. opacus Focke, growing very fine from 3-7 ft. high; R. erythrinus, Genev., R. pyramidalis Kalt., R. Hystrix Weihe, R. Newbouldii Bab. (fide Rev. W. Moyle Rogers), and R. pulcherrimus Neum., all new to the county. This wood is on the slope of a red sandstone hill called The Cliff. In the same wood was a small amount of R. carpinifolius W. & N., which I mention because R. carpinifolius Blox. has been often mistaken for Weihe and Nees' plant; and I understand that Leighton was in frequent communication with Bloxam over Rubi, when preparing the county Flora. For a similar reason I may state that I found R. villicaulis Koehl., near Crosemere; the plant so named in the Flora having probably been R. pyramidalis Kalt. The Mere district does not seem to be at all rich in brambles, except in one spot, a sandy piece of waste land between Crosemere and Sweatmere, where besides R. villicaulis, R. plicatus, R. fissus, and some others flourished, including a plant allied to R. anglosaxonicus Gelert, for which I have no name.-EDWARD F. LINTON.

THE SUPPOSED ASPLENIUM ACUTUM FROM THE MOURNE MOUNTAINS.-The recent paper on the botany of these mountains referred to at p. 31, contains the following interesting note:-"Asplenium Adiantum-nigrum var. y. acutum Bory.-In a dark cave among the mountains of Mourne (Sherard, Herb. Oxon.; also Raii Synopsis (Filix minor longifolia, &c.). We are glad to be able to correct an error of long standing in regard to this fern. The plant which was collected by Sherard in the Mourne Mountains in 1694, and of which fronds are preserved in the Herbarium Sloaneanum in the British Museum, and the Sherardian herbarium at Oxford, was not an Asplenium, but a beautifully-divided plumose barren form

of Athyrium Filix-femina, closely resembling the form known to pteridologists as Kalothrix. The frond in Herb. Sloaneanum (vol. 100, p. 52) [sent by Sherard] is figured in Plukenet's Phytographia (p. [t.] 282, fig. 3), and described by Petiver in his Almagestum (p. 250), the locality of West Indies, which is given on the page mentioned, being corrected in the Mantissa (p. 78, para. 4) to ex Hibernia. Ray (Historia Plantarum, vol. iii., p. 79, 1704) gives the mountains of Mourne, in Co. Down, as the place where the specimen above mentioned was obtained, Plukenet's figure and description being quoted. In the third edition of Ray's Synopsis (1724) the editor, Dillenius, suggests (p. 127) that the fern may be a cave-grown form of Asplenium Adiantum-nigrum. This view is endorsed by Newman, who says (British Ferns, ed. 1844, p. 259): 'Sprengel, Willdenow and Sadler, all of them give an Asplenium acutum, which I think must be identical with Ray's Filix minor longifolia.' With regard to the specimen in the Sherardian herbarium at Oxford, Mr. G. C. Druce kindly informs us that it is labelled, gathered in ye mountains of Mourne in ye county of Down.' On this label (?in Ray's handwriting) is written: This is a very rare and elegant plant and deserves a proper name.' Accompanying it is a nature-printed sheet from the same specimens, and probably of nearly contemporaneous date. Sibthorp, when professor at Oxford (1784-1795), labelled this specimen Asplenium Adiantum-nigrum L. The British Museum specimen, which R. Ll. P. [Mr. Praeger] has examined, is practically identical with the Kalothrix form of Athyrium Filix-fœmina, and with the Oxford specimen. Professor Vines writes us: 'I have compared the enclosed (a cultivated frond of Kalothrix) with the Sherardian specimen from the Mourne Mountains, and have no hesitation in saying that they are identical, excepting the differences that are to be referred to the fact that one plant is wild and the other cultivated. The Sherardian specimen is certainly Kalothrix,' i. e., a barren plumose form of Athyrium Filix-femina.""

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HIERACIUM SOMMERFELTII Lindeb., var. TACTUM (Journ. Bot. 1892, 367). This form should, in my opinion, be treated as a separate species. My cultivated specimens remain practically indistinguishable from the wild ones, but differ very materially from Perthshire H. Sommerfeltii, grown side by side with them, and from Lindeberg's types. When the hawkweeds of the granitic hills of Scotland have been thoroughly examined (which is at present very far from being the case), I have little doubt that this plant will be found. in various parts of the country.-EDWARD S. MARSHALL.

LAGURUS OVATUS IN JERSEY (Journ. Bot. 1892, 377). - I notice that Lagurus ovatus is recorded as an addition to the Jersey Flora. I found it in the same locality in 1877, and recorded it in Science Gossip. Subsequently I found that it owed its origin to the misplaced zeal of a botanist who scattered seed of this pretty Guernsey grass on the sands near St. Ouen's bay. There was a good patch of it when I saw it, which was, I believe, the year after the seed had been sown.-G. CLARIDGE Druce.

NEW WILTS PLANTS.-The following additions to the Flora of Wilts have been verified. I am responsible for the localities. against which no name is placed :

:

New for the County.-Geranium collinum, established at 2, near Devizes, Rev. A. C. Smith. Rubus adscitus, 11, East Knoyle; Pyrus communis, 5, Grimstead; 11, East Knoyle. Senecio aquaticus b. pinnatifidus, 5, Clarendon. Carduus crispus var. litigiosus, 10, Whaddon. Campanula rapunculoides established at 8, Codford, for upwards of twenty years; origin unknown; F. O. Earney. Calluna Erica a. glabrata, 5, Grimstead, Earney; b. incana, 5, Grimstead, Earney. Gentiana Pneumonanthe, 6, Pitton, Miss Henderson. G. germanica, 11, Mere Down, Rev. E. H. Linton. Mentha sativa

a. rivalis, 2, S. Wraxall, G. C. Druce; 8, Heytesbury. b. paludosa, 5, Grimstead. M. gentilis, 5, Landford. Melissa officinalis established at 5, Whiteparish. Salix Smithiana, 2, Clyffe Pypard. Rev. E. H. Goddard; 5, Grimstead; 7, Durnford; 10, Broad Chalke; 11, E. Knowle. Epipactis media, 5, Grimstead, Henderson. Juncus compressus, 8, Codford, Earney. Agropyron repens b. barbata, 4, Ham and Chilton Foliat, Druce. Pilularia globulifera, 5, Hamptworth. New for Wilts, North. Fumaria densiflora, 4, near Chilton Foliat, Druce. Myosotis repens, 4, Chilton Foliat, Druce. arvensis b. umbrosa, 2, Bishopstone, Druce.

M.

New for Wilts, South.-Nasturtium sylvestre, 10, Britford, Earney. Medicago denticulata, 5, Farley, Henderson (in confirmation of Top. Bot.). Vicia Bobartii, 10, Alderbury. Rosa sphærica, 6, Clarendon; 9, Semley, Rev. W. M. Rogers. Bartsia Odontites a. verna, 6, Milford; 7, Stratford. b. serotina, 5, Grimstead; 6, Ford; 7, Durnford; 10, Bishopstone; 11, E. Knoyle. Betula pubescens, 5, Grimstead; Whiteparish. Scirpus fluitans, 5, Hamptworth. I am specially indebted to Mr. J. G. Baker, Mr. Arthur Bennett, and the Rev. W. Moyle Rogers, for critical help in naming.-EDWARD J. TATUM.

ROSA INVOLUTA Sm., IN SOMERSET.--In June last I fortunately found two bushes of this rose, which I had never gathered before, in a field-hedge not far from Dulverton. It is believed that the plant had not been previously observed in the county of Somerset, although recorded in Topographical Botany for both divisions of Devonshire.-JAMES W. WHITE.

SEEDLINGS.

A Contribution to our Knowledge of Seedlings. By the Right Hon. Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., M.P., &c. London: 1892. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. 8vo, Vol. I., pp. viii, 608; Vol. II., pp. 646. With 684 figures in the text. Price £1 16s. We have our "Genera Plantarum," our Prodromi, and many monographs besides, but these deal only with the plant that has reached maturity. There are also divers works and papers more or

less devoted to the subject of germination and seedlings, or which include descriptions of individual cases or mention some particular phase of the subject; but hitherto we have had no general systematic account of the early stages in the life of flowering plants. Such, however, is Sir John Lubbock's recently published book on seedlings. Following an introduction of about 80 pages are nearly 1200 containing descriptions of the seedlings, and often also of the seeds and germination of species from almost every natural Order included in Bentham and Hooker's great work, the arrangement of which the author has adopted. A copious bibliography occupies 40 pages, and to complete the whole is a full index of all the species referred to in the text.

To botanists who frequent the Linnean Society or read its Journal, the introduction will already be familiar. It consists in fact of several of the author's papers already published by the Society, now revised and arranged in one chapter, and a very interesting one it makes. In it Sir John discusses at some length the form and size of cotyledons and attempts to explain their great variety by corresponding variations in the shape of the seed, or difficulties in the way of escape during germination.

Some may question the value of these explanations, at any rate as regards the general principle that the form of the cotyledon is determined by the form of the seed and its arrangement or position therein, but the fact remains that there is a striking difference between the cotyledons and not only the adult leaves of the plant, but in many cases also those immediately following the seed-leaves, and so extended a series of observations bearing on the subject cannot but be welcome. The forms of cotyledons are, as Klebs observes, and as anyone may see by glancing through the present work, on the whole much simpler than those of the later leaves, and Klebs suggests that while in some cases perhaps they retain the form characteristic of the species in bygone ages, a more generally applicable explanation is that applied by Goebel to stipules, namely, that they are "simplified by arrest." When, however, we consider the multifarious duties of the cotyledon, sometimes serving merely as a storehouse of food-material for the growing seedling, sometimes as an organ for bringing into solution and absorbing the highly condensed and often comparatively insoluble food-stuff of the endosperm and carrying over the same to the seedling stem, and then often, even after performing these functions, actively making its way out of the seed and playing quite a different part as a chlorophyll-containing assimilatory leaf, and in exceptional cases like Streptocarpus, Cyclamen, and many of the Onagraries, assuming the size, form and importance of an ordinary foliage-leaf-when we take all this into consideration, we must surely admit that the cotyledon is something more than a relic of bygone ages, and represents a highly complicated rather than a "structure simplified by arrest," and can hardly be regarded merely as "a survival of the universal foliage of deciduous trees in older geological days, ere time had differentiated them into their present varied forms.' Sir John does at any rate show evidence that in certain cases certain

causes and effects are co-related; that, for instance, an emarginate or lobed cotyledon is often coincident with a smaller or greater ingrowth at the chalaza; that narrow cotyledons are often present, where for some reason there is not an easy exit from the seed; and that if they had broadened out in the ample space afforded them in the endosperm, they would probably have never got free, but been torn from the axis, as does actually happen in a species of Anona figured on p. 104. Even supposing that many of the theories were not wonderfully suggestive, and that every explanation were untenable, we should still have about a thousand pages chock-full of condensed descriptions drawn up from actual observation of the seeds, germination and early stages of growth of plants of almost every Order obtainable, accompanied in many cases by careful drawings of living specimens.

We can only refer briefly to a few of the points of interest in which the book abounds. Preceding the description of species of each family is an introductory chapter, in which are described the forms of fruit, seed and embryo occurring therein, and also of the cotyledons observed among the seedlings. Where possible, both seeds and seedlings are classified under the prevalent types, the shape of the cotyledons usually forming the basis. This classification, as Sir John himself admits, does not always follow generally acknowledged lines of affinity. Species of the same genus turn up in different groups, while one group will contain species widely scattered through the Order, as, for instance, the broad and entire type of cotyledon of the Crucifere, to which the following conform, representing three of the five series, or seven of the ten tribes into which Bentham and Hooker divide the Order :-Mathiola incana, Cheiranthus Cheiri, Alyssum maritimum, Hesperis nivea, Conringia perfoliata, Camelina sativa, Biscutella didyma, Lepidium graminifolium and spinosum, Iberis corifolia and Chorispora tenella; and with slight modification, Æthionema gracile and Iberis Lagascana; the second type with broad and emarginate cotyledons is "almost as widely distributed throughout the Order."

Fundamental differences sometimes occur, even between species of a genus. Thus there is a striking contrast between cotyledons of a hypogæal and epigæal nature: in the former they are fleshy, colourless, and fill the seed in which they remain, serving merely as a store of food for the developing seedling, while in the latter they escape from the seed-coats, often grow considerably, become green, and look and behave like an ordinary leaf. Clematis recta, however, is described as an exception, not only in its genus but in the whole family of Ranunculaceae, in that its cotyledons are subterranean and never leave the seed. In Anacardiacea there are two leading types: seedlings with aerial and seedlings with subterranean cotyledons; Rhus Thunbergiana is a good example of the latter, and Rhus typhina of the former. The same is noticed among the Phaseoleæ, where the genera Phaseolus and Erythrina both supply species illustrative of each class; but here the aerial cotyledons are not strictly foliaceous, remaining pale and fleshy and often turned to one side of the stem. The horse-chestnut is in

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