Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/39

 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 29

high-road from the railway station, a little past the uppermost lock of the canal. The leaves of this plant are of considerable size, being about twice as large as those of a plant in my herbarium from Rampstead, collected by Dr. J, Boswell Syme, and excepting that the leaves are glabrous, the Marple plant appears to agree with the variety /3 majns, Hobkirk. The most obvious character for determining this subspecies in the absence of the flower or fruit, is the arrangement of nerves in the leaves, which are arcuate, with the extremities. turned towards the midrib; in the two flrst- named forms the nerves are arcuate in the opposite direction, i. e. they are turned outwards. There is -one peculiarity in the venation of the Haw- thorns, which is invariably overlooked by the draughtsman and engraver, viz. the direction of the secondary nerves, which proceed from the midrib to the base of each sinus ; such an arrangement is very rare, being found only in some other species of Crut<e(jus, as C. Azarolns, etc., in species of Fa(jus, and in a few other plants. Mr. Spencer H. Bickhant, jun., reported the occurrence of Myosiirus minimus, L., in plenty at Yale Royal, near Northwich, which species he believed had never previously been noticed in the neighbourhood.

Nov. Wlh, 1870.— R. Angus Smith, Ph.D., F.E.S., Vice-President, in the cluiir. " Notes on the Botany of Mere, Cheshire," by George E. Hunt. The border of Mere Mere has for long been a locality famous to the bota- nists round Manchester, and T was led, in 1864, to commence a systematic and continuous exploration of Mere, with the view of discovering as many of the recorded Mosses as might still exist there. It may be of service to other bryologists in the district to mention those which grow there at the present date, and also the nature of soil they prefer. Phr/scumitrium sphm-icum, found by Wilson in 1834, and recorded in the Bry. Brit. A careful search, in 1864, led to the re-discovery of this species in very minute quantity. In 1865 it was still more sparing (not above a dozen capsules). 1866 was so exceedingly wet a season that the plant could not have come up at all. 1867, it again occurred very sparingly. 18G8, it was plentiful, but destroyed by the autumn rains before much of the fruit had ripened. 1869, again frequent, and would have been plentiful but the autumn rains again destroyed it whilst the fruit was even more immature than in the preceding year. 1870, very plentiful, and abun- dance of it has come to maturity. This Moss always grows on dried mud. Phascum serratum ^ is frequent every autumn on clay and sandy banks at Mere ; it occurs quite frequently in cornfields at Bowdon, in damp sea- sons, coming up a few weeks after the corn has been cut. In cornfields at Bowdon its companions are P. muticum, P. alter nifoUum, and Pottla iruncata, and very rarely Trichodon cylmdricns — the latter never fruits in this district. Phascum nitidum, frequent every autumn at Mere on clay and sandy banks ; it occurs elsewhere about Bowdon on newly-cut ditph banks. P. rostellatiim, on banks at Mere, with the two previous species, but much more sparingly. It has also been found in Sussex by Mr. Mitten, and was collected there again last year by Mr. Davies. It is one of the rarest of all the British Mosses. P. sessile, very rare at Mere. I collected it in the autumn of 18G9, and again in November, 1870, inter- mixed very sparingly among P. serratum, from which it is difficult to separate it except with the aid of the microscope. With this it can be at once distinguished from that si)ecies by its longer, more rigid, almost en- tire leaves, with a very wide nerve. P. serratum has no nerve, and the

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