30 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIEllES. 



loaves are spinulosely serrated. P. sessile was gathered in Sussex many 

 years since, but I liave not heard of its recent discovery either tliere or 

 elsewhere. It is one of the rarest British Mosses. P. patens, on dried 

 mud, almost every season, intermixed with Physcomitrium splicericum, and 

 usually much more plentiful than that species. This Moss comes up in 

 autumn in the Ashley district of Bowdon, although very sparingly, 

 wherever an open drain has been cut in spring. It also springs up about 

 BoUington, under the same circumstances. Phascum ciispiilatnm. I have 

 not yet found this at Mere, but it comes up on banks on the Chester lload 

 between Bowdon and Bucklow Hill, when they have been newly made up, 

 or plastered with mud from the road. Leskia polycarpa fruits freely about 

 the roots of trees on the borders of Mere, both in autumn and spring. 

 Hypnum ripariiim, a very neat variety of this Moss, fruits in abundance 

 in August and April, on clay banks and at the roots of trees at Mere. 

 Eiccia Jhdtans and R. crystallina are both frequent on dried mud at Mere, 

 with Phascum patens, etc., and both species fruit freely there. Numerous 

 interesting flowering plants are also found, viz. Elatlne hexandra, Limosella 

 aquatica, Pepl'is Portala, Polyrjonnm minus, Littorella lacnstris, — all plen- 

 tiful on mud. Carex vesicaria, fringing the woods at the edge of the Mere. 

 Scirpiis acicularis, in vast quantity in sandy places. Car.ex (Ederi, in stony 

 and grassy places. This is the true (Ederi, and very rare ; I have only- 

 seen it elsewhere on the sands on the south side of Southport, where it is 

 very abundant and luxuriant. It appears quite distinct as a species 

 from C.jlava (including C. lepidocarpa), with which it is often placed as 

 a variety. Centunculus minimus, frequent some seasons in the open pas- 

 tures on the borders of the Mere. Menlha sativa, in ditches by the road- 

 sides between Bucklow Hill and Mere Mere. Rubus Balfoiirianus and R. 

 pallidns, in thickets by the Mere. Polygonum, mite has been reported 

 from Mere, but after searching without success for it for several seasons, 

 I can only suppose that some of the more luxuriant forms of P. minus, 

 frequent there, have been mistaken for it. The seeds of P. minus, which 

 are shining black, and only half the size of those of P. mite, afford the 

 only safe distinction. — Mr. Hardy remarked that so long ago as 1828, 

 Mr. AVilliam Wilson, of Warrington, sent P. mite from a Cheshire locality, 

 under the erroneous name of P. minus, to the late Sir William Jackson 

 Hooker, in whose herbarium at Kew the specimens still are. Mr. Hewett 

 C. Watson, the author of the ' Cybele Britannica,' mentions these speci- 

 mens, and does not express any doubt of their being the P. mite, of 

 Schrank. Mr. Hardy found the plant at Mere in 1860, and sent speci- 

 mens to the Botanical Exchange Club, then located at Thirsk ; and Mr. 

 J. G. Baker, the Curator, in his rej^ort for the next year, mentions these 

 specimens as new to the Mersey province, Mr. Hardy stated his belief in 

 Mr. Watson's opinion, that P. mite was much more difficult to distinguish 

 from P. Persicaria than from P. minus ; and he had not the least doubt, 

 notwithstanding Mr. Hunt's objection, that, now special attention had 

 been called to the species in question, it would be proved, in the course of 

 another season, to be an inhabitant not only of the Mere district, but 

 common in other stations included in the Manchester flora. 



