306 THE LOCAL FIELD CLUBS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



rnc the Inrpjest frond he could find, about six inches in length, which has 

 been authenticated at the British Museum. — E. B. Penfold. 



Plants near Birmingham. — It may be interesting to record a new 

 station for one or two of our rarer plants which I find in this neighbour- 

 hood. Carex teretiuscula, var. /3. Ehrhartiana, I find growing on the 

 borders of one of the pools at Sutton Park. Tn this same park, but about 

 half a mile distant from the last, I find Carex lavigata, and just outside 

 the park Mentha rotnndlfol'ia in the greatest abundance. If this last is 

 an escape, I am puzzled to account for its presence in the meadow in 

 question, as there is onl_y one small garden anywhere near, and no trace 

 of Mentha rotnnd'ifolla can I find in it. — James Bagnall. 



Plants near Plymouth. — Gnaphallam syhuticmn, L., near Ply- 

 mouth. — The author of the ' Cybele Britannica,' in vol, ii. speaks of this 

 plant as "apparently very rare in the Peninsula" (Cornwall, Devon, and 

 Somerset), and, in the Compendium, records it for Devon alone of the 

 three counties of the province. So far as the neighbourhood of Plymouth 

 is concerned, my experience confirms Mr. Watson's statements as to its 

 great rarity in the south-west of England, since I never met with it any- 

 where here until recently, when I discovered it in two pastures enclosed 

 from Crownhill Down, near Plympton. In one it grows plentifully, but 

 in the other only sparingly. A few days after finding it in this locality, 

 I was siu'prised at seeing three plants in another, Koborouyih Down, about 

 six miles north of Plymouth. Poa cuuipressa, L., in Cornwall. — This 

 Grass is but thinly scattered over the country around Plymouth. One of 

 its local stations is a dry bank about a mile from Torpoint, Cornwall, by 

 the road leading thence to St. John's, by Trevol. It seems not to have 

 been hitherto recorded from Cornwall. I take the opportunity of correct- 

 ing two typographical errors in my article on " Plymouth Plants " in 

 ' Joiu'iuil of Botany,' Vol. IX. pp. 240-342 ; in second line, under Pyriis 

 to7'ininalis, for base read bole ; in first line, under Lastrea spinalosa, for 

 most read moist. — T. E. Archer Briggs. 



Alisma Plantago. — If British botanists want occupation at this sea- 

 son of the year, a large field, comparatively unworked in England, lies 

 open in the comparative anatomy of the sid^terranean and subaqueous 

 parts of plants. The study of the life-history of the above common spe- 

 cies, for example, would probably give new ideas on botany to many who 

 are now mere collectors and systematists. Nolte has described and 

 figured, in his essay on Stratiotes and Sagittaria, corm-like tubers, closely 

 similar to those of the latter plant, in Alisma, which do not seem to have 

 been observed, or at least properly understood in this country. Like 

 those of S'jgitturia, they are buds remaining dormant through the winter, 

 and containing a store of nutriment, to be employed in the development 

 of the new plant from the tuber iu the next year. — Henry Trimen. 



