Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/17

 'COMPENDIUM OF THE CYBELE BRITANNICA. 7

Mentha piperita, Hiuls. (p. 2GS.) — Usually considered a Chesliire na- tive, and I have certainly found it four or live times within the county, but always under circumstances of suspicion. Once in a little Willow- bed just opposite a farmhouse ; again, in a hedge-ditch, where I learnt a cottage and garden had once stood ; then by the side of a runnel, with a farm-garden a little above it, etc.

Galeopsis versicolor. Curt. (p. 275.) — On the question of this being " a boreal variety of Tetrahit^'' note that it is perhaps the most characteristic and widespread flower of central Cheshire. The potato-fields, which it affects most, are often covered for roods with it. There is plenty of G. Tetrahit also, and they often grow together; but I never saw the slightest approach to intermediates between the two, and alive they are abundantly and I should say " specifically" distinct. It is only in the herbarium that likeness begins.

Chenopodium fcifoUum, Sm. (p. 293.) — Add province 9, within a round bracket for greater caution ; observed twice about rubbish and in a garden in the environs of the city of Chester this year, but nothing like so well established there as round London. After all, is this Chenopod a better native than Merciirialis annua and Sinapis muralis, plants to me of similar claims and environment ? Three years ago I raised from Kilburn seeds a few plants of Cjicifolium at Tabley. It has even in this short space spread as a weed in different places through a kitchen-garden of two acres. Riimex sanguineus and Datura Stramouiam have also maintained themselves there for many years in spite of hoeing and weeding.

Atriplex erecta, Huds. (p. 296.) — If this includes or equals A. serrata, Syme, province 9 (Cornfields about Knutsford) may be confidently added. Mr. Syme named thus for me our prevalent iqu-ight field Atriplex.

Rumex pratensis, M. and K. (p. 302.) — Add province 9. Several places in Tabley Hill Lane and clsewliere. I found the plant in Mersey as soon as I luul learnt it in Middlesex. I fancy it occurs nearly everywhere, if known and looked for.

HippopJiae rhamnoides, L. (p. 304.) — Is this ever or to what extent an inland plant in England ? It forms an abundant and characteristic vege- tation, lining and following the torrent-beds for miles in Switzerland, e.g. near Culoz.

EmpetrHiii nigrum, L. (p. 303.) — The comital distribution of this seems worth tracing minutely. So large a slice of southern and central England wants reliable record of this plant, that any occurrence of it in zone 1 may prove worth chronicling. I was surprised to find Empetrum in a small marsh lying close into the town of Knutsford, on the south-east side, in the lieart of the plain of Cheshire, and miles from anything that can claim the name of a hill. Of course, on the high lands of Cheshire, where Cheshire touches Yorkshire, running between Derbyshire and Lancashire, Empetrum is common enough, I should gladly know whether Stafford ancl Derby can show any records for Empetrum in their flat portions. Qy. Is not its climatic distribution curiously analogous to Vaccinium Vilis-Idrea to which I see zone 1 is denied ? The presence of Empetrum, and former presence of Saxifraga Ilirculus at Knutsford, point to one fact ; they arc both relics of a much older flora, when perhaps continuous morasses con- nected the now highly cultivated plain of Cheshire with the hilly districts of the north-cast.

Mercuriulis annua, L. (p. 309.) — I should say a colonist. Still it is

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