Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/166

 148 SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES.

P. prcBlongm, Wulf. — Abundant in Thames between Oxford and Sand- ford. This fine species flowers earlier tlian P. liicens, L., which occupies often the same spots. The surface of the water, covered in May with the spikes of prd'lougus, a month later I have found to show nothing but those of P. liicens. The spikes are probably buoyed up above the water by the development of the peduncles. P. preelongas is stated in the ' Student's Flora,' to flower, from June to July. T should imagine this to be too late, as I collected it in the middle of May, and some of the foliage was already decaying.

Acorns Calamus, L., is very abundant along the Thames banks, cer- tainly on the Berkshire side. Easily recognizable from the waved margins of the leaves.

Carex axillaris, Good. — IMarston Lane, H. Boswell.

��SHOET NOTES AND QUEEIES.

Cyperus Fuscus not a Native. — This plant was first figured as a British plant by Sir W. Hooker in his continuation of Curtis's ' Flora Londoniensis,' vol. iv. dated 1821 (see 'Flora of Middlesex,' 298), with the following remark: — "For this valuable addition to the flora of the British Isles the botanical world is indebted to that zealous and able naturalist A. H. Haworth, Esq., wlio found it in a low, marshy meadow scarcely half a mile from his late residence in Little Chelsea. It grows in some abundance on the sides of a ditch along with Juncns lufoiiins, Bidens cernna, Rannnculus sceleratus. Polygonum minus, and other such semi-aquatics. The individual plants here figured and described were gathered by the Kev. Mr. Bree in company with Mr. Haworth, and were sent to me on the 27th of September. Many of the specimens were in flower, but more in seed." I believe that this plant has been regarded as an iidiabitant of Britain, owing to a mistake of the Kev. Mr. Bree. It is very true that the plant grew on the side of a stream called Eelbrook, in a common field between the King's Koad and Parson's Green, on the Fulham Koad ; but Mr. Haworth made no secret that he had sowed it there from seed which he obtained from Swiss specimens which he purchased from Mr. Thomas, of Bex, who collected Swiss plants for sale. This explains why it has not been found in any other locality except God aiming, where it was probably also sowed. The plant did not come up every year on the side of the Eelbrook, but appeared in favourable seasons. I believe the field is now drained and built over, or, at least, w^as rapidly being so used when I was there a few years ago. — J. E. Gray. [In the number of the ' Magazine of Natural History ' for March, 1831 (iv. 186), the Kev. W. T. Bree says that "he was directed and accompanied to the spot for the express purpose of gathering specimens of the plant by A. H. Haworth himself," who remarked " that it was some- what extraordinary the plant should have so long escaped his notice, who had for a number of years resided at Chelsea, and botanized with no little assiduity in its environs." In S. F. Gray's ' Natural Arrangement of British Plants,' ii. 730 (1821), no hint is given of the plant there called Cyperus Ihmortlui having been artificially introduced. Other facts of its history will be found in the ' Flora of Middlesex.' — Henry Trimen.]

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