248 NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



I SO named what is apparently the same plant for Mr. Ealfs from 

 " rivulet on Lizard Downs " last year. — C. C. Babington. 



Eeport on the Plants gatheeed in 1878. 

 Edited by J. G. Baker. 



Ranunculus fluitans. River Eamont, Cumberland, Rev. W. 

 Wood ; gathered by W. Hodgson. New to subprovince 25. — A 

 form with floating leaves from the Teviot, near Roxburgh Castle ; 

 gathered by Mr. A. Brotherston. 



Polygala vulgaris var. (jrandiflora. Specimens so named were 

 sent from Cwm Idwal, Carnarvon, Rev. A. Ley ; and chalk 

 debris near Dover, A. Bennett. These I asked Mr. A. W. Bennett 

 to examine, and he reports: — "The specimens marked Pohjgala 

 vulgaris var. grandijiora from Cwm Idwal, collected by Mr. A. Ley, 

 are nothing but rather large -flowered specimens of the ordmary 

 form. Those with the same name, gathered by Mr. A. Bennett 

 near Dover, more resemble the Ben Bulben variety, both in the 

 smaller lower leaves and fleshy habit, and in the apiculate wiry 

 sepals. Still, no one who saw them together would say that 

 the Kentish plant exhibited more than an approach towards the 

 remarkable Irish variety." 



Malva borealis, Wallm. (ill. Henningii, Goldb.) This species is 

 now becoming one of the common mallows of the neighbourhood 

 of London. From what we in England call M. rotundifolia of 

 Linnseus, which is the ilZ. vulgaris of Fries and many other conti- 

 nental authors, it diflers by its much smaller flowers and fruit- 

 carpels marked on the back by distinct transverse ridges. It 

 comes much nearer to the common South Ei\ropean M. jmrvifiora 

 of Linn^us, but in this latter the calyx is more markedly accrescent 

 in the fruiting stage, and the dorsal ridges of the fruit-carpels are 

 more strongly iDronounced and produced into marginal teeth. I 

 have not seen any British si^ecimens of the true parvijiora. This 

 year Mr. Nicholson has contributed specimens of three varieties of 

 borealis, all gathered in the neighbourhood of Kew, with characters 

 as follows : — 



1. The type, as issued by Fries in his ' Herbarium Normale ' 

 under the name of M. rotundifolia, and figured by Reichenbach 

 under the same name in his ' Icones,' tab. 4835, with slightly 

 hah-y fruit, a quarter of an inch in diameter, and a relatively 

 small calyx with sepals hardly at all incurved at the tip. 



2. A form with a smaller fruit (one-sixth to one-fifth of an inch 

 in diameter) not particularly hairy, with a calyx as large as in the 

 type, which wraps over it so as nearly to hide it. This is probably 

 M. inicrocarpa, Reich. Ic, tab. 4883, but not the plant so called by 

 Desfontaines, which is o, parvijiora form. 



3. A form with densely hispid fruit as large as in the type, but 

 with the sepals incurved and wrapped over it as in the second variety. 



Trifolium supinuin and spumosujit. AVaste ground on the Surrey 

 side of the Thames, near Kew. — G. Nicholson. 



Fotentilla norvegica. A good supply sent by Dr. Arnold Lees 



