BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS 187 



places that suggested a casual origin ; but, as mentioned above, it 

 has recently been found where there is no reason to suppose 

 it an alien. All the plants observed were covered more or 

 less with hairs and glands, as in Boissier's type. In the Journal 

 of Botany in April 1908 (pp. 109-111) there is described and 

 figured a new variety, named glabra by Messrs. W. Ingham and 

 J. A. Wheldon, who found it on Skipwith Common in Yorkshire 

 and Strensall Common. This variety is quite eglandular. 



S. Reuteri has not been detected in Scotland, but, in view of 

 its distribution in England, it seems likely to occur here. Its 

 resemblance to the species of Sagina related to apetala makes it 

 advisable to examine these carefully both in herbaria and in the 

 living state. 



It was first noted as British in the Botanical Exchange Club 

 Report for 1892, Boissier's original description being quoted ; but 

 there is no good description readily accessible in British floras. It 

 differs from S. apetala in its erect sepals appressed to the ripe capsule 

 and its shorter peduncles ; from S. ciliata in its blunt short sepals ; 

 from S. procumbens by its central stem elongating and flowering, and 

 by its peduncles of the capsules being often erect. 



The usual form has the peduncle short and densely glandular, 

 and is so described in Babington's " Manual " ; but the var. 

 glabra is eglandular, and often has the peduncle curved as in 

 S. procu7?ibens. 



A Simple Method of recording Local Distribution. — Experi- 

 ence soon proves the advantage of using methods that give accurate 

 records in brief space, with little trouble, and that are not liable to 

 be rendered useless by loss of the key to the method. One that I 

 have made use of for some time with good effect may prove useful 

 to others. It is based on the use of the Ordnance maps on the 

 scale of an inch to a mile. I have these ruled with narrow lines of 

 " waterproof ink " along each minute of latitude and along the even 

 numbers of the minutes of longitude. Thus the map is divided into 

 parallelograms nearly i\ mile from east to west and ij from south 

 to north. Along the sides of the map the spaces are lettered with 

 capitals from A to P, beginning at the south. So along top and 

 bottom, beginning at the east, the spaces are lettered from a to ?/. 

 Thus to record the occurrence of any plant in a space, all that is 

 required is the official number of the map and two letters. A 

 more exact record is given by adding a small parallelogram with a 

 dot in the relative position. Relative abundance is indicated by 

 the letters a, p, y, 5, e, these being used to denote frequency of 

 locaHties and frequency in the localities, the first letter referring to 

 number of localities, the second to frequency in these. Thus a 

 denotes in only one locality, or once in each locality ; /?, in few 

 localities or rare in the localities ; y, not common, yet not rare ; S, 



