70 R. A. PBYOR — BOTANICAL WORK OF THE PAST SEASON. 



affected by atmospheric influences. Among them are included the 

 gravels and sands, and, in a still finer state of subdivision, the pure 

 loams and clays, these differences also resulting ultimately from 

 their chemical — siliceous or aluminous — composition. Our own 

 county affords examples of all of these, and the specialities of their 

 floras might be advantageously compared with those shown by M. 

 Thurmann's lists of characteristic plants. 



Mr. Watson's opinion — and none can in a question of this kind 

 be deserving of greater weight — coincides to a certain extent with 

 that of M. Thurmann. " I doubt," he observes, " whether pre- 

 sently living plants can be properly said to have any geologic 

 relationships except indirectly through mineralogy ; that is, through 

 the mechanical and chemical peculiarities of the ground on which 

 they grow." * The same writer had already warned us of some of 

 the difficulties " which attend any attempts to di'aw up tabular 

 lists with a view to show the distribution of plants in connexion 

 with geologic strata." f It requires indeed a very accurate know- 

 ledge of the botany of some considerable tract of country before we 

 can pronounce with certainty that a particular plant has any real 

 relation with a given subsurface. And if difficulties arise from 

 the occurrence of plants through some natural causes on formations 

 to which they do not strictly or truly belong, but on which they 

 chance only to be growing, they are still further complicated when 

 the introduction is owing, although unintentionally, to the opera- 

 tions of man. Thus when gravel or clay has been imported with 

 railway ballast into a chalk district, or vice -versd, the adventitious 

 plants may be noted, and, what is worse, recorded by an incurious 

 observer, as if equally native with the legitimate children of the 

 soil, side by side with which they are for the first time growing 

 — a confusion that has before now been the source of much error. 



But I have detained you too long already from the professed 

 object of my paper. 



With our actual progress botanically during the past season I 

 do not think we have much reason to be discontented. 



I have first to put on record a few additions to the flora of the 

 county generally. 



Perhaps the most noteworthy of these is the discoveiy of 

 Galium erectum, Huds., near Hitchin, where, however, as far as is 

 at present known, it grows but vei-y sparingly. As it has been 

 reported for Bedfordshire, and has certainly been found in Cam- 

 bridgeshire and Essex, its occurrence in the Ouse division of 

 Hertfordshire might perhaps have been fairly anticipated, and fits 

 in with its recorded distribution. It is a plant of considerable 

 critical interest, and is quite rare as a native in England. The 

 Hitchin specimens were unusually luxuriant. 



Myosotis sylvatica, Hoffm., has been already brouglit before our 

 Society as one of the good things of the year, but, apart from the 

 beauty of its flowers, is of sufficient importance to merit a few 



• Topographical Botany, p. 6-51. t ib. p. 649. 



