CLADIUM ilARISCUS E. liR. IN N. SOMERSET 271 



river Avon west of Bristol for some seven miles south-westwai'ds, 

 where the width is under half a mile ; the name is stated to mean a 

 valley narrowing to a point. The Severn Sea could overflow it only 

 by way of the mouth, and it is shut out there by embankments which 

 were erected under the great Bill of Sewers issued by Henry Vlll. in 

 1531. Constantly re-appointed ever since, this historical body of 

 Commissioners has always kept out the sea from the limited area 

 (with serious floods occurring at times), and still holds its powers, 

 altered by modern legislation and increased by numerous drainage Acts. 



The surface of Walton Moor is rich grass-land on a peaty soil, and 

 except from a few odd spots about 40 years ago, there is no local 

 knowledge that any general peat-cutting for fuel has been done there 

 within the last hundred years ; the drainage system was laid down 

 about that length of time ago, and the destruction of any Cladlum 

 Avas always assumed to have followed with similar fen species. The 

 main rhines are cleared out twice each year. 



liecords of certain plants made by recognized observers exist from 

 the neighbourhood for 186 years back from the present time, and 

 during the early part of the nineteenth century, so they may be con- 

 sidered to have searched the Moor ; about 85 years ago a thorough 

 botanical survey of the whole was carried out, and much work has 

 been done there more recently by local and visiting botanists — work 

 made specially attractive by the ease by which the place can be reached 

 within the ten mile radius of Bristol. 



In ancient times the Cladium may have been distributed about 

 all parts of the Fen districts, which stretched on both sides of the 

 Severn from below Gloucester to Lundy Island, as quite modern 

 records exist of its survival in very limited quantities both vvest of 

 Glastonbury (N. Somerset, v.c. 6) as recorded in Mr. White's Flora of 

 Bristol and Journ. Bot. 1918, p. 83, and near Wiveliscombe (S. 

 Somerset, v.c. 5). Field-botanists will be encouraged by this dis- 

 covery of Cladium in another district to hope that their own local 

 rarities may after all be surviving. 



SISYRINCHIUM BEKMUDIANA L. 

 By Oliver Atkins Farwell. 



[We are indebted to Mr. Farwell for a "separate" of the following 

 paper, .which appears in the Memoirs of tit e lorrey Botanical Club, 

 xvii. 82-8 (issued June 10). In view of the interest of the subject 

 to British botanists, we venture to assume permission to reprint 

 Mr. Farwell's conclusions (which cannot be gainsaid) for the benefit 

 of our readers. — Ed. Joukn. Bot.] 



Many botanists have in the past considered the pale-blue-flowered 

 Sisyrinchiuin Bermudiana L., of the Atlantic coast, and the violet- 

 blue 8. iridioides Curtis, of Bermuda, to be conspecitic, and have 

 united them under the Linujean name. Phili[) Miller, who cultivated 

 both, sid(3 by side, considered them to be amply distinct and described 



