SHORT NOTES. 277 



likely to be destroyed, it was removed to the garden of one of the 

 members of the Greenhithe Natnrahsts' Society, and thus 

 preserved ; it is in flower at the present time, but not quite so fine 

 as last year. I have again, this year, found a specimen of the 

 same plant on the ridge of the quarry, about one hundred feet 

 above the site of the other and about twenty yards distant. — 

 E. J. Cox. 



The Spartinas of Southampton Water. — There grows, on the 

 mud-flats about Hythe, South Hants, in company with S. altenii- 

 fiora, a Spartina, which, by the majority of characters given in 

 British works, would be rather S. alteniijiora than S. stricta, yet 

 which we now consider to be the latter. Mr. Townsend first 

 pointed this out from a specimen which we sent him as a voucher 

 for the occurrence of S. alter nijiura on the western shores of 

 Southampton Water. This form of S. stricta is from two to four 

 feet high, and has four to six spreading spikes sometimes six inches 

 in length, with the rachis protruded three -eighths to five- eighths 

 of an inch ; the spikelets are twenty to tliu'ty, and the leaves do 

 not narrow to the sheath. Prof. Babington gives for S. stricta 

 " one to two feet high," " spikes two to three," " rachis scarcely 

 extending heijond the last spikelet •/' and Dr. Boswell (Syme) says, 

 *' spikes two, rarely three or fom-," " spikelets six to ten," 

 *' flowering- stems six inches to one foot, though I have seen 

 specimens two feet high." We think, with Mr. Townsend, that 

 the comparative importance usually given to the characters 

 separating the two species is very misleading. The production of 

 the rachis, number of the spikes, and size of the plant, as 

 distinctive characters, are apparently quite overthrown by the 

 Hythe plant ; and it would appear that the leaves bemg jointed 

 to the sheaths or continuous with them, and the comparative 

 length of the upper leaf to the spike, afford the most reliable 

 characters for separating the two species. We have circulated 

 during the last five years, through the Botanical Exchange Club 

 and otherwise, a number of specimens named " S. alteniijiora,'' of 

 which many probably should have been labelled S. stricta. We do 

 not find, in the herbaria at the British Museum, Kew, or Cam- 

 bridge, any form of S. stricta so extreme as the Hythe plant, the 

 nearest being Billot, No. 1089, from Rochelle.— H. & J. Groves. 



Rediscovery of Cephalanthera rubra. — I was fortunate enough, 

 after many unsuccessful searches in the neighbourhood, to discover 

 Cephalanthera rubra last year. It occurs in a beech wood on the side 

 of a steep hill about two miles from Stroud, the locality being 

 restricted to one narrow strip of ground, perhaps of fifty yards in 

 extent, down the side of the hill, and is not easily found. I 

 noticed this summer some thirty or forty specimens ; few of these, 

 however, bear flowers. It is an exceedingly beautiful species, and 



