Notes on British Plants. 619 



plants, which are quite as inexplicable as their choice of ha- 

 bitats. One of these is their alternate abundance and scar- 

 city in localities where certain species may always be found. 

 On Reigate Hill T have sometimes seen Ophrys apifera and 

 Oymnadenia conopsea (and particularly the latter) so abun- 

 dant as hardly to allow of a step being taken without some 

 of them being crushed by it ; and perhaps the very next year, 

 although the season might be apparently equally well adapted 

 for their developement, they would be but thinly scattered 

 over ground where they had previously abounded. Others 

 again j as many annuals, show themselves in plenty one sea- 

 son, then disappear, and are not again seen for many years. 

 In 1836 I found Silene Anglica growing all over a sandy field 

 near Reigate Heath ; I have been informed that it has not 

 been seen there since : and in 1837, Robert Hudson, Esq., 

 of Clapham Common, and myself, observed Centaurea solsti- 

 tialis in tolerable plenty, in a clover field near the St. Ann's 

 Society schools, at Brixton ; this year it has not appeared. 



These instances will, I think, abundantly prove that we 

 have yet much to learn concerning the laws which regulate 

 both the geological and the geographical distribution, not on- 

 ly of Lycopodium inundatum, but also of many other plants 

 of our own country. 



Calluna vulgaris /3. — This variety is by no means uncom- 

 mon. I have observed it growing in many places ; among 

 others, in the Sussex forests, and, if my memory do not de- 

 ceive me, on Wandsworth Common : but nowhere have I met 

 with it in such profusion and beauty as on Moseley Common 

 before mentioned. In many parts of this Common it is quite 

 as plentiful as the more usual state of the plant. The great 

 degree of pubescence does not in the Calluna, as in hairy va- 

 rieties of many other naturally smooth plants, appear to de- 

 pend on its growing in a drier place than usual, since I have 

 noticed this variety in moist as well as dry situations, and 

 equally hairy in both. 



My botanical visits to Moseley Common were generally 

 made in the morning, sometimes leaving Birmingham as early 

 as 3 o'clock. On one occasion my attention was attracted by 

 the appearance of water, at a spot where I knew there was 

 no water the last time I was there. On arriving at the spot, 

 I found that the appearance was occasioned by the rays of 

 the morning sun being reflected from a very heavy autumnal 

 dew, lying on the hoary ling, which at this place quite co- 

 vered some gently rising ground. 



Calluna vulgaris, in all its states, is a very elegant plant. 



Vol. II.— No. 23. n. s. 3 r 



