HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



245 



is certainly much less easily found than the common 

 sylvatica; but the numbers are respectively 98 and 100. 

 (2) It is well known how largely the flora is affected 

 by the strata. Again, a plant which is abundant 

 over districts so wide that you can scarcely call it 

 "local," may yet not occur at all over other equally 

 wide areas in our island. Clematis Vitalba, 44 

 (traveller's joy), and Pastinaca sativa, 52 (parsnip), 

 are much less frequent in the north than in the 

 south ; Yorkshire is the northern limit of the common 

 Weaselsnout, or Archangel [Lamium Galeobdolon), 58 

 (see Baines's Flora, 1S40; but doubted in Hooker 

 and Arnott's Flora, 1850). (3) Seaside plants are 

 decidedly "handicapped." Thus the common sea- 

 pink, or thrift (Armeria maritima), only scores 73> 

 sea campion (Silene maritima), and common scurvy- 

 grass (Coc/ilearia officinalis), only 67 each. (4) Genera 

 such as Rnbns (the blackberries or brambles), or 

 Carex (the sedges), which are, as yet, satisfactorily 

 known to but a few, will probably be hereafter found 

 to have numbers of too low a figure. Doubtless in 

 the "Topographical Botany," to which I have not 

 had access, but to which the inquirer is referred by 

 Mr. Hewett C. Watson, the compiler of the catalogue, 

 other circumstances will be noted. 



I may state here that I am a master in a school 

 where not a little attention is given by some of the 

 scholars to the pursuits of natural history. I have 

 here and there interweaved into the ensuing lines 

 observations which were the joint-stock work of 

 others with myself. I also copy sometimes from 

 notes which I contributed to vols. ii. and iii. of the 

 "Natural History Journal" (W. Sessions, York). 

 Unless specially stated, the less known localities will 

 be in the neighbourhood of York. The dates are in 

 1878. 



March 6, First sweet violets. Already was there 

 a seed-vessel on one of the peculiar inconspicuous 

 greenish blooms ; it was split besides, and held ripe 

 seeds. — Variations noted in garden primrose : — (1) 

 stamens and pistil on same level ; (2) three with 

 petals, sepals, stamens, six each ; (3) two turning 

 double ; one had four stamens in different degrees 

 part-developed into petals ; (4) all five petals bifid. 

 Ditto of wild primrose: — (1) eight sepals, seven 

 petals ; (2) five with petals and sepals, six each. In 

 our "school gardens" is a polyanthus with corolla 

 and other floral parts still present, but calyces all 

 transmuted into corollas. At Woodhouse, near 

 Sheffield, was a polyanthus, with scape of great 

 thickness, with an extra whorl of flowers, and with 

 a tendency to a third. At York again, one sepal only 

 of a buttercup was turned into a petal. Pink vars. 

 were picked of wood anemones, wood sorrel, and 

 ground ivy. 



May 17. Noticed this year but little maple bloom 

 (Acer campestre), 57, and none of hornbeam (Carpinus 

 Betulits), 30 ; a contrast to the superabundance in 

 1877. On Clifton Ings was the large-flower bitter- 



cress (cuckoo-flower), Cardaminc amara, 67. You may 

 tell this by its larger leaflets, more cream-coloured 

 petals, and violet anthers. I've seen it by the stream 

 at the Ackworth Hessle, near Pontefract. There 

 were the first leaves, too, of the autumn-flowering 



Fig. 144. — Variety of Plantago major, b, single modified 

 flower of Pla?itago major. 



crocus (which is not a crocus ; so call it meadow- 

 saffron), Colchiciim autumnale, 39. This also grows 

 in many other places by the Ouse. I have picked it 

 between Ackworth and Pontefract ; in the Went 

 Valley, near Wentbridge ; at Slade-Hooton, and off 



