Plants, 547 



us it so much prevails. Withering gives, as its places of 

 growth, " old walls, roofs, and moist rocks ; " Salisbury, " old 

 walls ; " Loudon, " shady rocks ; " Smith, " on moist dripping 

 rocks, and old walls in mountainous countries ; " Lindiey, the 

 same as Smith ; Hooker, " rocks, walls, and old buildings, 

 especially in subalpine countries." — John R. Howe. Wim- 

 borne, July 26. 1832. 



The mention of the Isle of Purbeck prompts us to recom- 

 mend our correspondent to search for the Rhynchospora fusca 

 (*Sehce v nus fuscus Linn.), which, according to a specimen in 

 the herbarium of the Rev. H. Hasted, A.M., Bury St. 

 Edmunds, was originally gathered near the Isle of Purbeck, 

 by the Rev. Mr. Lightfoot. (See Smith's English Flora, vol. i. 

 p. 53.) The only two additional habitats registered of this 

 rare native are, " On Cromlyn Bog, near Swansea," where it 

 was found by Mr. E. Forster ; and " Near Kiilarney, Ire- 

 land," discovered there growing' in begs by Mr. J. T. Mackay, 

 curator of the College Botanic Garden, Dublin. See this 

 last gentleman's communication, in the Gardener's Magazine, 

 vol. vii. p. 229, 230. — J. D. 



Scabibsa arvensis L., an entire-leaved Variety of, and a "white- 

 Jkftvered Variety oj. — A correspondent, T. H., London, sent 

 us, on Dec. 30. 1832, a specimen of S. arvensis in its usual 

 state (that is, with the radical leaves merely serrated, and suc- 

 cessively increasing in dividedness, until the upper of the stem 

 leaves are deeply pinnatifid), accompanied by another speci- 

 men, whose stem leaves, fourteen in number, are all undivided, 

 and even their marginal serratures are small and inobvious. 

 Both specimens were gathered in September, 1832, in an un- 

 frequented coppice, at Hove, near Brighton, where, T. H. 

 remarks, that he found several specimens of the entire-leaved 

 variety. This fact deserves mention ; for Smith, in English 

 Flora, vol. i. p. 195., observes of S. arvensis : — " Whole plant 

 hairy ; reported to be sometimes smooth, with all the leaves 

 undivided ; but this has not been seen in England." Here 

 we have a variety, with entire stem leaves, found in England, 

 although these leaves are not also smooth ; for they, and the 

 stem, and the peduncle, are as hairy as are all these parts in 

 the S. arvensis itself. In the English Flora, it is not stated 

 that plants of Scabiosa arvensis are occasionally met with 

 bearing only white flowers ; or rather whitish flowers, for all 

 the blossoms which I have seen have shown a tinge of flesh 

 colour on the white. Mr. Rowe enlists this variety in his 

 above catalogue of white-flowered varieties of plants, found 

 about Wimborne, Dorset. The llev. George Reading Leathes 

 dug up, several years ago, a wild plant of it, and gave it to the 



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