Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/221

 NOTES IN JERSEY AND GUERNSEY. 199

companionship in the former island ; and have put together my jottings about some of the more interesting members of the flora, in the belief that few British botanists have examined the spring vegetation.

At this season, the botany of the tracts of sandy ground near the sea best repays attention. It consists of a dwarf vegetation of numerous species, and great beauty. The prevalent species in flower in such plac(:S during my visit to Jersey were CochUaria danica, Mcenchia erecta, Sagina apetala vera, Arenai'ia serjjyUifolla vera, Ccrastmm sem.idecandnim, Orni- thopiis pe7'pnsilliis, Alchemilla arvensis, Saxrfrarja tridactyUtes, Valerla- nella oUtoria and V. carinata, Myosotis colUiu, Plantago Goronopns, Carex arenaria, and a maritime state of Bromus mollis, all of very small size. These formed the bulk of the close turf; but scarcely less abundant were Cnpsella Bursa-pastoris, Teesdalia nndlcatd'is, Arabls ThaJiaiia, Draba verna mojuacnla, Stellaria Boraava, Erodinm cicutarium, Trifuliuiti siibterraneum and T. minus, Vicia angnsiifolia and V. lathyroides, Myosotis versicolor, Phleum arenarium and Mibora minima, the last varying consi- derably in size and in the colour of the glumes. Equally connnou was a dwarf Pansy, which agrees well with the description of V. nemausensis, Jord. in Boreau's ¥1. du Centre, p. S3, and with Billot's specimens so named, from La Kochelle (n. 1127 ter). This seems to be the V. tricolor, var. y. mediterranea, of Gren. and Godr. i. 183, and is certainly the var. 6. nana of Lloyd's Fl. de I'Ouest, p. 70. The petals are pale bluish- white, a little shorter than the sepals, and the spur blue. A Cerastium was also abundant in places, which, in consequence of all the bracts being entirely herbaceous, I at the time considered to be C. tetrandrum. Curt. ; and Mr. Stratton and Mr. A. G. More, who have both had opportunities of studying the plants of this genus in the Isle of Wight, also refer the Channel Islands specimens to C. tetrandrum. They appear, however, to deviate considerably from the typical tetrandrum in mode of branching as well as in the direction of the pedicels, and I am now inclined to place the plant rather under the C. pmnilum of Curtis (= C. obscurum, Boreau), of which several forms are distinguished by the French and German botanists. I cannot, however, consider C. pumilum specifically distinct from C. tetran- drum. Large green specimens of the Jersey plant, with elongated intcr- nodes, are perhaps the C. pediinculatum of Babington, described and figured as a species in the second volume of the JMag. of Zool. and Bot., but which lie subsequently referred to C. tetrandrum. Less common species noticed wilhthose above named were Polygala depressa, Medicago denticidata, Trifo- liumfiliforme, Trichonema Columna (which was in good flower and quantity by the second martello tower in St. Aubin's Bay), and Scilla aulumnalis, of course not in flower. With the Trichonema a Ilerniaria occurred, which seems to me to be the ciliated form of //. vulgaris, L., of Babington. Dr. Boswell Syme, however, refers all plants from the Channel Islands he has seen to //. ciliata, Bab., but my specimens differ in habit from authentic specimens of this doubtfully-distinct species from Cornwall. The remarkable desolate tract in the west of Jersey called tlie Quenvais would well reward a very careful search ; a rapid walk in a straight/ line across it showed, besides most of the species already recorded above, abundance of Euphorbia Faralias and E. portlandica, Schosnus nigricans, Silene conica just in flower, and plenty of Ilutckinsia petrtsa, a species not previously recorded for the district, though detected in very small quan- tity last year in some other part of the island. Though this plant is in

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