NOTES ON HJJlTrsH KllMIltASIAS 3 



very rarely assumes the same decumbent habit, and its llovvers are 

 \ery much larger. 



Dr. Druce, in the Report of the Botanical Exchange Club for 

 1919 (p. 572), has a brief note on JE. coiifusa that is rather mis- 

 leading in that it suggests a diversity of opinion concerning these 

 plants between Dr. Ostenfeld and myself. The reverse is really the 

 case, as may be seen by a reference to nw original account of j&. con- 

 ficsa, where I twice alluded to the resemblance between ^. minima 

 and E. scotica, both of which are equally unlike E. confusa (Journ. 

 Bot. Ivii. 170, 173). 



Euphrasia striota Host. 



This species was first recorded as a British plant in 189G in 

 Wettstein's Ponograph, p. 103, wdiere one habitat only is given — 

 " Surrey Downs." A year later Townsend, in his Monograph of the 

 British Species of Euphrasia (Journ. Bot. xxxv. 398), reported that 

 this record was erroneous and that he did not know the plant as 

 British ; but in the addenda and corrigenda to this paper (/. c. p. 475) 

 he amended this view by citing five British stations, two of which 

 were on Wettstein's authority. Subsequently, in his last years 

 Townsend named various British specimens " JE. stricta " or " Confer 

 E. stricta,'''' and the 10th edition of Babington's Manual treats this 

 plant as widely distributed in England, Scotland, and Ireland. 



In 1910 I found what I thought to be true E. stricta at Bossing- 

 ton. West Somerset, and this was recorded as such by Marshall in 

 this Journal (xlix. 285 ; 1911). 



Mr. Bucknall (British Euphrasies, p. 8 ; 1917) remarks that 

 many plants referred to E. stricta really belong to E. nemorosa, but 

 he admits the former species for four English counties, citing seven 

 localities, of which one is my Bossington station. In addition, four 

 habitats are given in County Gralway. 



^. si'r/c^rt has since been reported as British through the Exchange 

 Clubs or elsewhei-e up to the present year, when Mr. W. C. Barton 

 sent out for distribution as " E. stricta ? " an extensive gathering 

 from Wales. As Mr. Barton kindly referred his plants for my 

 remarks, I have examined them in conjunction with Townsend's earliest 

 British examples in the South London collection and other material 

 for which tliis name has been subsequently suggested. But 1 can 

 find no British specimen that seems to me really to agree with un- 

 doubted Continental exsiccata of E. stricta ; and I can only conclude 

 that all of our plants are referable either to a polymorphic E. nemo- 

 rosa, or more rarely to E. hrevipila, E. horealis, or E. Kerneri. 



Euphrasia stricta, which looks like a relatively uniform and well- 

 marked species, was originally described as a plant of mountain woods 

 in Austria in Host's Flora Austriaca, ii. 185 (1831), and his 

 diagnosis may be translated thus : — • 



" Root annual or biennial. Stem strict, subterete, clothed with 

 deflexed hairs, simple or divided above into few erect branches. 

 Leaves ovate, glabrous, on the margins prickly and dentate. Flowers 

 axillary, solitary, sessile. Calyx angular, 4-fid, with subulate teeth 



