340 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



SHORT NOTES. 



JUNCUS TENUIS Willd. IN SOMERSET AND DORSET. — Ml'S. 



E. P. Sandvvith has directed my attention to a quantity of this 

 rush now doing well along a riverside path by the tidal Avon 

 below Bristol. The standing of J. tenuis as a native British 

 plant seems to be insecure. In the London Catalogue it is treated 

 as indigenous, whilst Mr. Druce and others regard it with 

 suspicion. Apart from Don's Scottish records, its history with 

 us goes no farther back than thirty years or so, although to-day 

 it is known in a number of widely separated stations. That a 

 species so distinctly characterized should have been entirely 

 overlooked in all these localities by our forerunners is difiicult 

 to believe ; and I have little doubt that good judges are agreed 

 that in most instances, if not in all, the plant has been intro- 

 duced — probably from North x\merica to begin with, and then 

 when well established in one or two centres its dispersal would 

 be comparatively easy. In this Avonside instance local botanists 

 are clear that the plant cannot have been present more than three 

 or four years at the outside ; and that being so, the date of 

 introduction w^ould coincide with the erection of some fixed lights 

 on metal standards wdiich have been placed at various points 

 along the river-bank as aids to navigation. These standards with 

 their lighting apparatus were imported from Belfast, and our 

 supposition is that J. tenuis, which has grown for years in 

 Belfast Harbour, was brought thence in material used for pack- 

 ing, and in that way reached the spots where it is now found — 

 not many yards from two of the lights in question. In Doi'set, 

 Mr. C. B. Green, of Swanage, has lately detected /. tenuis at 

 Lilliput, near Poole Harbour, on gravelly ground recently disturbed 

 by builders. — J as. W. White. 



Apium graveolens L. — My various records and specimens of 

 this genus show it native in the following vice-counties : — 1 to 6, 

 9 to 11, 13 to 29, 31, 33 to 35, 37 ?, 38, 39 ?, 41, 44, 45, 48 (speci- 

 men in Herb. Babington), 49 to 54, 58 to 64, 66 to 70, 73 to 75, 

 83 (Herb. Syme, &c.), 87, 89 (Herb. Babington), 101, 104. I 

 should be glad of records for any of the missing counties, especi- 

 ally Beds (30), Northants (32), Cardigan and Montgomery (46, 

 47), Isle of Man and Dumfries (71, 72). Only genuine native 

 records are of use. — H. J. Kiddelsdell. 



REVIEWS. 



Ernahrungspkysiologisches Praktikum hoherer Pflanzen. V. 

 Grafe. 494 pp. 186 text figs. Berlin : Paul Parey. 

 17 marks. 

 The present practical book on the physiology of plant nutri- 

 tion will be very welcome, especially to those who are not 

 specialists in physiology. Professor Grafe, of Vienna, well known 



