LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 5 



S. Neyrautii from the estuary of the Bidassoa Eiver. The 

 specimens of *S'. Townsendi and S. stricta were collected by the 

 exhibitor in the Isle of Wight ; those of fS. alternijiora near 

 Mill brook Station in Southampton Water. He pointed out the 

 morphological differences of the three English species, which 

 show S. Toivnsendi to hold in many respects an intermediate 

 position between S. alternijiora and ,6'. stricta, although it is 

 different enough to be treated as specifically distinct from either. 

 He then described the distribution of the three species, and more 

 particularly that of S. Townsendi, which was first collected near 

 Hythe in 1870 and distributed as S. alierniflora. Three j'ears 

 later the brothers Grove found it again in the same locality, and 

 in 1881 they recognised it as a distinct new species and named it 

 S. Tow)isendi. At present it covers many hundreds or may be 

 thousands of acres on the muddy foreshores of the Hampshire 

 coast and the Isle of Wiglit, threatening S, stricta with exter- 

 mination in some places. There are three theoxnes to explain the 

 appearance of the grass, which is too conspicuous to have been 

 long overlooked : — (1) It may have been introduced, likeyS. alierni- 

 flora, which is a common mud-grass on the Atlantic coast of 

 America from Newfoundland to Brazil. Lord Montagu has, in 

 fact, stated that the people on the shores of Southampton Water 

 have a notion that it was introduced by an Argentine ship. But 

 so far, no Spartina corresponding to S. Toiviisendi has been found 

 in America, and the x\rgentine species, mentioned by Arechavaleta 

 and Stuckert, are distinctly different, (2) It may have originally 

 arisen as a mutation of S. stricta, and, the characters having 

 become fixed, the progeny now behaves like an ordinary species. 

 Against this may be argued that there is no evidence, historical or 

 morphological, for this assumption. (3) It sprang from a fertile 

 hybrid or hybrids between S. alternijiora and S. stricta, and has 

 assumed the character of a particularly vigorous and fairly con- 

 stant species. In favour of this theory two circumstances may be 

 adduced: first, the fact that S. Toivnsendi combines actually not a 

 few of the distinctive characters of both species ; and secondly, 

 that it has an almost exact pai'allel in S. Neyrautii, which was 

 described as a hybrid of S. alierniflora and S. stricta from speci- 

 mens found growing among the parents in the estuary of the 

 Bidassoa. This S. Neyrautii differs from S. Toivnsendi only in 

 the more pronounced accentuation of the characters derived from 

 S. alternijiora. The Adour and the Bidassoa Rivers on one side 

 and Southampton Water on the other are the only two places in 

 the world, so far as we know, where S. alternijiora and *b'. stricta 

 meet ; and it would be a case of extraordinary coincidence if 

 S. Townsendi and S. Neyrautii should after all be found to have 

 been introduced from some other part of the world just into 

 those two localities. An attempt of artificial crossing of S. alterni- 

 jiora and S. stricta should be made. Dr. Stapf finally spoke of the 

 grass as a mud-binding and land-reclaiming species. 



A discussion followed, in which the President, Mr. H. Groves, 

 Mr, J. C. Shenstone, and Prof. ¥. W. Oliver engaged. 



