SHORT NOTES AND aUEKIES. 53 



notice in modem British Floras. A parallel variety occurs in P. Saxifraga 

 as I have seen in Cheshire specimens. Mr. Sadler has also kindly sent 

 me a specimen of the Centaurea from the Ochil (not Achil, as printed at 

 p. 28) Hills. It is a rayed plant, and one of the numerous intermediates 

 between typical C. Jacea and C. 7ii(/ra, which have been collectively called 

 C. nigrescens, but divided into many " species " by Boreau and other 

 French botanists. This Perthshire plant is, of the extremes, nearer 

 C. Jacea than C. nigra, the upper phyllary-appendages being more lace- 

 rated than pectinate, and quite covering the phyllaries themselves. Mr. 

 Sadler has named it C. prateims, Thuill., a sufficiently accurate deter- 

 mination if we may trust Billot's and other published Continental speci- 

 mens. Its different aspect and involucres distinguish it from the usual 

 South and West of England rayed form, which is, perhaps, C. serotina 

 of Boreau, wrongly quoted as a synonym of C. amara, L., in Gren. and 

 Godr. Fl. de France, vol. ii. p. 240, from which it is very different. — 

 Henry Trimen. 



Ambrosia peruviana, Willd: — In 1863 I met with a single individual 

 of this species in a stubble field at Margate, Kent. Very much puzzled 

 what to make of it, I, by chance, showed it to Dr. Seemann, who imme- 

 diately recognized it as a South American weed he was quite familiar 

 with. — W. T. Thiselton Dyer. 



" Babington's curse " (p. 24.) — Perhaps this name is a reminiscence 

 of a passage in the Rev. Charles Kingsley'«s 'Miscellanies,' vol. i. p. 181. 

 Describing the vegetation of a chalk-stream, he proceeds : — " To this list 

 will soon be added our Transatlantic curse, Bahingtonia diaboUca, alias 

 Aiiacharis Ahinadrum. It has already (1858) ascended the Thames as 

 high as Reading ; and a few years more, owing to the present aqua viva- 

 riiiii/ mania, will see it filling every mill-head in England, to the torment 

 of all millers. Young ladies are assured that the only plant for their 

 vivariums is a sprig of Anacharis, for which they pay sixpence — the market 

 value being that of a wasp, flea, or other scourge of the human race; and 

 when the vivarium fails, its contents, Anacharis and all, are tost into the 

 nearest ditch ; for which the said young lady ought to be fined five pounds, 

 and would he if Governments governed. What an ' if!'" It is almost a 

 dangerous experiment to parody so closely formal botanical names ; syno- 

 nyms have been quoted pedantically quite as absurd. — VV. T. Thisel- 

 ton Dyer. 



Alyssum incanum, L. — In answer to INIr. Watson's question in Vol. 

 VIII. p. 383, 1 beg to say that I picked a single specimen of Alyssum 

 incanum in a clover-field about two miles from Ross, Herefordshire, in the 

 summer of either 1866 or 1867. The plant was solitai-y ; nor have I 

 noticed it before or since in the same locality. — Augustin Ley. 



Galium tricorne, With., is usually described as having umbellate 

 cymes with oidy 1-3 flowers. In examples, however, which I met with 

 in a potato-field at Garden Clift", Gloucestershire, the cymes are com- 

 pound with as many as nine pedicels, not always equally fruit-bearing, 

 though in most instances both the cocci are developed. — W. T. Thisel- 

 ton Dyer. 



