12 THE .lornXAL OF BOTANY 



cannot accept the opinion, but adliere to that expressed by Mr. Groves 

 on the same specimens that tliey were correctly labelled ; " the 

 flowers being too big, the leaves too distant, and the whole plant on 

 much too large a scale for any form of tricliophylhis that I have 

 seen." 



? H. peltatus X trichophyllus. Good examples of this rare hybrid, 

 as I judge it, were obtained from, a pond on Brimscombe Farm 

 between Chipping Sodbury and Wickwar, where only the supposed 

 parents accompanied it. Mr. Groves saw a series of specimens and 

 agreed with my suggestion, the peltatus plant being in his opinion 

 nearest that form of the aggregate usually referred to R. Jloribundus 

 Bab., while the trichophyllus was typical. My attention was espe- 

 cially attracted to a character possessed by this hybrid and shared by 

 similar crosses as we find them about Bristol — namely, the erect, 

 weak, barren peduncles. After flowering these often remain upi'ight 

 and nearly parallel with tlie stem. I venture to regard this pecu- 

 liarity as in itself strong evidence of hybridity, stronger even than 

 the undeveloped carpels which are sometinies abortive from other 

 causes. Messrs. Hiern and Wheldon, who have lately seen this plant, 

 do not agi'ee with us, and incline to name it a form of heterophyllu>i. 



R. Jloribundus Bab. G. In the pond on Brimscombe Farm 

 mentioned above, with a presumed hybrid, and in several old strontia 

 (celestine) pits (now ponds) south of Hall End. In one of these 

 ponds the plant bore flowers with 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 petals^the only 

 instance known to me of such an occurrence amongst the Water 

 Buttercups. 



R. Urouetii F. Schultz. G.. Ditch (or rivuletj Ixtunding Yate 

 Lower Common on the south ; June 1916. 



R. Linr/ua L. In 186-") Mr. T. H. Yabbicom gathered this on 

 Walton Moor by Clevedon and j^laced a specimen in charge of the 

 Bristol Naturalists' Society. So far as is known, the plant was not 

 again noticed in that locality until 1914, when it was re-discovered 

 by the Misses Cundall in a peaty ditch, well choked with vegetation, 

 a short distance west of Cla[)ton-in-Gordano Chui-ch. Thei-e was a 

 fair quantity, extending about 100 yards, but when that ditch in 

 turn is dug out and cleared another long period of scarcity will 

 probably follow. 



The small patches of R. Lingua that occur in the Bristol district 

 are separated from each other by wide intervals. It is a species that 

 does not spread or scatter itself over large areas even when the 

 surrovmding ground appears identical in every respect. Thus, on the 

 great expanse of peat-moor between Highbridge and Glastonbury 

 this plant grows only in one place where in 1915 there seemed to be 

 no more and no less of it than there was forty years ago. The 

 primordial submerged or seedling leaves of this species, produced in 

 the first weeks of spring, appear to be very little known, and are 

 seldom mentioned by botanical writers. The earliest leaves of seed- 

 ling plants are subrotund, cordiform, about two inches in diameter. 

 Those that succeed, while larger, more elongate and entire at the base, 

 are still broad and blunt, their texture being membranous and semi- 

 transparent. It is not until the stem becomes aerial that long, 



