90 THE JOURXAL OF BOTANY 



" Some four, five, or six years ago, the Primrose League made me 

 a Grand Cross of the League for nn^ services in this connection ; 

 altliough I never was a member of the League, and when Lady Borth- 

 wick wrote and asked me to join it, before it was founded, as a 

 Founder, I flatly refused. 



" Now the here and there vagueness of this statement is due to the 

 fact that Ml'. Moneypenn}^, the biograplier of Lord Beaconsfield, on 

 the publication of his first volume, expressed the desire to see me on 

 tlie subject of the foundation of Primrose Day, as he said that all 

 sorts of peojjle were claiming the honour of it, and so far as he could 

 discover without any proof of their claims. I met him, and simj^ly 

 showed him Messrs. King & Co.'s bills, and my letter to The Timei^, 

 and the League history of the origin of the celebration of the Day ; 

 and he at once without any more words swept the whole deck of false 

 claimants to the honour . . . .'' 



It may be noted, as closing the history of the matter, that at the 

 time the subject was under discussion. Canon Blagden wrote a letter 

 which was published in the TVesf minster Gazette : I omitted to note 

 the date of publication, but the letter is dated April 30 : — 



" I was vicar of Hughenden when Lord Beaconsfield died, and I 

 beg to say that a large wreath of primroses was sent to us, bearing 

 this inscription (which was written by her Majest3'^'s own hand) : 

 '' His favourite flowers, from Osborne." The wreath was placed on 

 the railings with several others, and though unfortunately the inscrip- 

 tion was taken away by one of the thousands of visitors, the primroses 

 are now in our possession. I have further to say that during the 

 many years of her survival of Lord Beaconsfield her Majesty never 

 failed to send a wreath of primroses to Hughenden, which was placed 

 on his grave by her Majesty's command." 



James Beittex, 



SHORT NOTES. 



HiERACiUM HYPAKCTicuM Almqvist IN NoEWAT. Among a few 

 Hawkweeds from Myrdal, &c., sent to me for naming by Mr. H. W. 

 Monckton and collected by him in 1913, there is a sheet of this very 

 rare and peculiar species. It agrees in all essential points with mv 

 no. 4306, gathered (1916) by "the Allt Coire Duibhe, Glen Shiri-a, 

 Laggan, v.c. 96, E. Inverness; also with the -Inchnadamph (W. 

 Sutherland) plants of 1890, so named for Mr. F. J. Hanbury by 

 Dr. Elfstrand, as a /brwea. It appears to be new for the Scandinavian 

 peninsula, and was described from S. Greenland material ; so this 

 occurrence is of particular geographical interest. I may add that two 

 sheets of H. 'alpiniDii' (from Myrdal and Finse) are excellent 

 H. gracilentum Backh. In his Monograph of the British Hieracia 

 (1856), p. 26, Backhouse states that specimens from Norwa}^ sent to 

 him by Blytt as typical forms of the plant figured as JI. alpinum 

 in the Flora Danica, tab. 27, correspond almost exactly with his own 

 specimens of H. gracilentum from Lochnagar and Canlochen Glen. 

 I have examined this plate, which undoubtedly represents a form of 

 II. gracilentum with unusually entire foliage. — Edward S. Marshall. 



