SHORT NOTES. 247 



SHORT NOTES. 



Lathyrus hiesutus, L., in Kent. — I found this species in a 

 wood close to Sonthborongh, near Timbridge Wells. It was 

 growing along the roadside for about forty yards, and for about 

 ten yards into the wood. When I first noticed it, three years ago, 

 it was not plentiful, but this year there is a good deal. Growing 

 with it are Vicia gracilis in great quantity, and a few j)lants of 

 Lathyrus Xissolia and Vicia hirsuta. — William Fawcett. 



Carex capillaris, L., in Gordale. — I am glad to be able to 

 add to the twelve comities and vice-counties enumerated in ' Topo- 

 graphical Botany,' for this graceful little Carex, a thirteenth 

 comital division — Mid- West Yorkshire. It was discovered here 

 only a few days ago, by Mr. William West, of Bradford, a 

 promising young botanist; and yesterday I had the pleasure of 

 seeing the. plant myself; so that little uncertainty can now rest 

 upon either name or station. It grows on the terrace-like mural 

 scar of mountain limestone in Gordale (near Malham), at an alti- 

 tude of about a thousand feet, on the left side of the gorge as it is 

 ascended, above the great slope of debris, but about ten to twenty 

 feet below the narrow plain of turf there crowning the summit of 

 the precipitous cliffs. From the nature of the soil and subjacent 

 rock, combined with the elevation, I have long looked for this 

 'Oarex turning uj) on the Craven Scars ; but although I have 

 explored Gordale myself many times, the luck of discovering it 

 has fallen (as it so often appears to do) to a comparative tyro. 

 Like the Helianthemum canum found on the Malham Cove Scars, 

 two miles distant, the Carex must be very local. The other rarity 

 of these Scars so often found accompanying the Cistus and the Carex 

 — I refer to Potentilla alpestris — is much more abundant and less 

 restricted in its area than the other two ; and I may say that the 

 same is the case in Upper Teesdale, where the Carex is known in 

 three stations, the Cisius in one only, and the Potentilla in nme. 

 Until now the Cronkley Fell locality for Carex capillaris has been 

 the most southerly and least elevated known in Great Britain. 

 Gordale is somewhere about forty miles still further south, and 

 the altitude at which the sedge grows about two hundi'ed feet 

 lower. Two other plants, rarely found at a like elevation, also 

 occur in Gordale, within the limits of the su]3eragrarian zone 

 (above 900 feet), viz., Hypericum montanum and Ehawnus cathar- 

 ticus ; s ; that in this locality, owing to favourable local circum- 

 stances, related doubtless to rock-nature and climate, the flora of 

 two regions, alpine and agrarian, not merely meet, but con- 

 spicuously intermingle. Lowland species ascend higher, and 

 montane si)ecies descend lower, in the Craven district than in 

 any other part of West Yorkshire. The Carex "find" comes just 

 in time for inclusion in the Flora forming volume second of 

 * West Yorkshire,' although of necessity unmentioned in the list of 



