71 THE .loi'HNAL of BOTAJTX 



sale of the collections he bad brought hack with him. A great part 

 of his dried plants was brought by L'Heritier, and he seems to have 

 sold a good quantity of the grass seed. Owing to the circumstances 

 indicated, however " the neat returns " admitted only of " a very small 

 dividend between myself and the executors of my worthy friend 

 Mr. Walter, who, to my inexpressible regret, and to the loss of the 

 world in general, died of a fever in the month of January last, to 

 whom I wish to ascribe all the merit of the discovery of the importance 

 of this valuable plant, and whose memory will be thereby rendered 

 immortal." 



I do not know whether authentic specimens of the plant are rare : 

 Mr. Hitchcock mentions that there is one in the l)e Candolle Her- 

 barium at Geneva. It is not represented in Walter's collection, but 

 in Herb. Banks is one endorsed by Dryander " Fraser 17S9." It 

 appears in Eraser's List (c. 1790) as " Agrostis cornucopia? from 

 seeds collected at Chelsea," with a reference to Walter's Flora. We 

 have also a specimen (from Edward Forster's herbarium) from 

 Curtis's garden, labelled by Forster " Frazer's Grass," under which 

 name it seems to have been commonly known. 



"WISTMAN'S WOOD.' 



[The following abstract of a communication made to the Linnean 

 Society by Mr. Miller Christy at its meeting on Feb. 3 is taken from 

 the " Proceedings " of the Society, no. 382, to which it was supplied 

 by the author.] 



Wistman's Wood is a small unique grove of ancient but exceed- 

 ingly gnarled and diminutive oak-trees (all Q Kerens pedunculated), 

 growing out of an extensive pile of huge angular blocks of granite 

 (known locally as a " clatter "), without a particle of visible soil. The 

 wood is hung (so to speak) upon the steep left bank of the West 

 Dart, about two miles north from Two Bridges, almost in the centre 

 of Dartmoor, and at an elevation of about 1 500 feet. Its area is 

 small (about 5-6 acres at the outside), and the number of trees 

 comprised in it is probably not more than from 300 to 400, in spite 

 of statements to the contrary. 



Wistman's Wood is not a remnant of a primaeval forest which 

 once covered Dartmoor, for none such can ever have existed. It may 

 be, however, the only survivor of other similar groves which once 

 occupied some of the deeper and more sheltered valleys. It owes its 

 continued existence, beyond question, solely to the "clatter" of 

 granite blocks out of which it grows; for this protects it, not only 

 from fire, but also from all animals grazing on the Moor; these being 

 unable to cross it, owing to the steepness of the slope and the 

 crevasse-like open spaces between the great masses of rock, which are 

 piled together in great confusion. For the same reason, access to 

 the wood is, even for human beings, a climb or scramble, rather than 

 a walk ; while, within the wood itself, progress is even dangerous, 

 owing to the crevasses being hidden by an abundant growth of moss, 

 ■many tussocks of Luzula sylvatica, and other herbage. 



The oaks (with which grow two or three bushes of Pyrus Auck- 

 paria, but no other kind of trees) are all exceedingly dwarfed. 



