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SHORT NOTES. 



County Floras and Botanical Biography. — The isolated 

 paragraphs which appear from time to time in our journals, furnish- 

 ing notices of the occurrence of pknts in different counties, with 

 historical resumes of their earliest records, might be superseded by 

 some such course as I proceed to suggest, viz. the issuing of a series 

 of Floras on the ' Flora of Middlesex ' type. This Flora appears to 

 me to be a grand step in the right direction, both as to execution 

 and subject. Few counties possibly would yield such ample matter 

 of botanical interest, but all probably have some yet unrevealed stores. 

 One individual, however competent, could not undertake such a series, 

 though how much can be accomplished by one private individual is 

 evidenced in the case of the able writer of the ' Cybele Britannica.' 

 Let a society for the publication of county Floras be formed, all the 

 members to be willing to work at the old sources of information, two 

 or three persons taking the same author ; to guard against oversight 

 and errors, let these results be forwarded to an editor (or editors) to 

 recast and arrange. This would do much to put, at any rate, the early 

 information on a satisfactory basis, — new information as to localities is a 

 matter easily provided for ; and when the whole of the British counties 

 have been thus gone over, there will be good material at hand for a 

 general account of botanical progress in Great Britain, Another matter 

 which the society might be simultaneously occupied with is the com- 

 pilation of a botanical biography, or the issuing of lives of the more 

 prominent botanists. In the case of counties for which good Floras 

 already exist, arrangements might be made with the compilers for new 

 editions on the above suggested plan, so as not to infringe upon pri- 

 vate interests. Such a work as I have suggested, well carried out, 

 would do much for the advancement of the science, and the promotion 

 of interest in botanical subjects among a far greater number of indi- 

 viduals than is the case at present. — Robert Tucker. 



Early Records of the Isle of Wight Plants. — Dr. Brom- 

 field, in his ' Flora Vectensis,' rarely refers further back than to the 

 third, or Dillenian, edition of Ray's 'Synopsis' (1724), to which is 

 appended the ' Indiculus Plantarum Dubiarum.' The following are 

 noticed as natives of the island by previous writers : — 



Crithmum sive foenictdum mai-'mum, Sampire. " About Southampton 



