148 SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES. 



P. prcBlongm, Wulf. — Abundant in Thames between Oxford and Sand- 

 ford. This fine species flowers earlier tlian P. liicens, L., which occupies 

 often the same spots. The surface of the water, covered in May with the 

 spikes of prd'lougus, a month later I have found to show nothing but 

 those of P. liicens. The spikes are probably buoyed up above the water 

 by the development of the peduncles. P. preelongas is stated in the 

 ' Student's Flora,' to flower, from June to July. T should imagine this to 

 be too late, as I collected it in the middle of May, and some of the 

 foliage was already decaying. 



Acorns Calamus, L., is very abundant along the Thames banks, cer- 

 tainly on the Berkshire side. Easily recognizable from the waved margins 

 of the leaves. 



Carex axillaris, Good. — IMarston Lane, H. Boswell. 



SHOET NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



Cyperus Fuscus not a Native. — This plant was first figured as a 

 British plant by Sir W. Hooker in his continuation of Curtis's ' Flora 

 Londoniensis,' vol. iv. dated 1821 (see 'Flora of Middlesex,' 298), with 

 the following remark: — "For this valuable addition to the flora of the 

 British Isles the botanical world is indebted to that zealous and able 

 naturalist A. H. Haworth, Esq., wlio found it in a low, marshy meadow 

 scarcely half a mile from his late residence in Little Chelsea. It grows 

 in some abundance on the sides of a ditch along with Juncns lufoiiins, 

 Bidens cernna, Rannnculus sceleratus. Polygonum minus, and other such 

 semi-aquatics. The individual plants here figured and described were 

 gathered by the Kev. Mr. Bree in company with Mr. Haworth, and were 

 sent to me on the 27th of September. Many of the specimens were in 

 flower, but more in seed." I believe that this plant has been regarded 

 as an iidiabitant of Britain, owing to a mistake of the Kev. Mr. Bree. 

 It is very true that the plant grew on the side of a stream called Eelbrook, 

 in a common field between the King's Koad and Parson's Green, on the 

 Fulham Koad ; but Mr. Haworth made no secret that he had sowed 

 it there from seed which he obtained from Swiss specimens which he 

 purchased from Mr. Thomas, of Bex, who collected Swiss plants for sale. 

 This explains why it has not been found in any other locality except 

 God aiming, where it was probably also sowed. The plant did not come 

 up every year on the side of the Eelbrook, but appeared in favourable 

 seasons. I believe the field is now drained and built over, or, at least, 

 w^as rapidly being so used when I was there a few years ago. — J. E. 

 Gray. [In the number of the ' Magazine of Natural History ' for March, 

 1831 (iv. 186), the Kev. W. T. Bree says that "he was directed and 

 accompanied to the spot for the express purpose of gathering specimens of 

 the plant by A. H. Haworth himself," who remarked " that it was some- 

 what extraordinary the plant should have so long escaped his notice, who 

 had for a number of years resided at Chelsea, and botanized with no little 

 assiduity in its environs." In S. F. Gray's ' Natural Arrangement of 

 British Plants,' ii. 730 (1821), no hint is given of the plant there called 

 Cyperus Ihmortlui having been artificially introduced. Other facts of its 

 history will be found in the ' Flora of Middlesex.' — Henry Trimen.] 



