SHORT NOTES 21 



SHORT NOTES. 



CiRsiUM TUBEROSUM All. m CAMBRIDGESHIRE. Cirsium tube- 

 rosum, though a fairly common plant on the Continent, is ex- 

 ceedingly rare in this country. Until a few years ago, when its 

 occurrence on many parts of the Glamorgan coast was established by 

 the Kev. H. J. liiddelsdell, its British distribution appeared to be 

 confined to two localities in Wiltshire. It is therefore of consider- 

 able interest to record that this plant occurs also in the Eastern 

 Counties. It was found by one of us (Mills) in July 1919 in Cam- 

 bridgeshire, in the south of the county, growing among rough herbage 

 on a chalk subsoil at an altitude of a little over 200 ft. There were 

 many j^lants on a very old grassy way and a number on the wide 

 border of an arable field separated from the road by a hedge (unfor- 

 tunately part of this border has since been ploughed up and some of 

 the plants destroyed). The site is to all appearances original down- 

 land that escaped being broken up at the enclosure of the district, 

 which is well known to have taken place at the beginning of the last 

 century. As the district in question was in former days carefully 

 examined by that excellent botanist the Rev. W. W. Newbould, it is 

 only fair to him to state that, in Prof. Babington's MS. list in the 

 Cambridge Herbarium, there is a record, afterwards crossed out, 

 of C. i^ratensis from the vicinity. Inasmuch as C. pratensis and 

 C. tuherosus used to be considered conspecific, Newbould may actually 

 have seen the plant in our locality. Mr. A. Shrubbs, of the Botany 

 School, Cambridge, very kindlj'' went to collect a specimen for the 

 University Herbarium and carefull}^ compared it with those already 

 in the collection. We last year visited the locality and examined 

 most carefully the fusiform root-fibres which are the characteristic 

 feature of the plant. — W. H. Mills ; A. H. Eva^s. 



Calla palustris L. The Quarterly Nummary of the Royal 

 Botanical Society of London for October 1921 records the finding 

 last summer of Calla palustris in a pond at Knotty Green, near 

 Beaconsfield (Bucks), where it was growing in abundance ; how or 

 when it got there Miss Crabb, the discoverer, was unable to ascertain. 

 The Summary contains a reference to the occurrence of the j^lant in 

 a pond among pine-trees between Esher and Claygate in Surrev, 

 which was first recorded by H. C. Watson in Topogra/pliical Botany^ 

 p. 411 (1874). ' Watson states that, although not indigenous, the 

 plant *' there presents an equal semblance of genuine nativity as the 

 Hypericum elodes, among which it creeps along the shallow margin 

 of the pond. It is stated," Watson continues, " to have been planted 

 there by ' a medical man ' ; — a statement which may well be credited, 

 as medical men usually succeed only in doing mischief when unwiselv 

 they interfere with nature. This record is made here to prevent 

 future botanists being deceived by the doctor's reprehensible experi- 

 ment in science." Later in the same volume (p. 660) Watson 

 publishes a correction of the statement that Calla had been planted 

 " by a medical man " ; he does not, however, afford any infoi-mation 

 as to who was actually responsible for its introduction, and this, by 



