100 THE JOURN.VL OF BOTANr 



SHORT NOTES. 



Pl^ltexei's References to the Flora. Loxdtnensts. Dr. B. 

 D. Jackson and the late VV. A. Clarke have between them fairly well 

 cleared up the chronological puzzles and the sequence of plates in the 

 Flora Londinensis of Curtis. In Dr. Jackson's first note (Journ. 

 Bot. 1881, 310) he refers to "a MS. of Pultenej seen by Mr. Pryor, 

 but which I have not been able to verify." Mr. Clarke (Journ. Bot. 

 1895, 113) says that it "is, I believe, to be found in a copy of the 

 first edition of Hudson's Fl. Anglica in the library of the Linnean 

 Society." But neither he nor anyone else appears to have looked up 

 the matter to verify it. In taking down this volume for some other 

 reference, I noticed b}^ chance the so-called " MS. of Pulteney." It 

 consists of eight lines (four in ink, and four in pencil) on the inside 

 of the front cover of Pulteney 's own annotated copy of Hudson's 

 work " ex Dono Authoris," afterwards owned by " Jno. Jones, Grray's 

 Inn." The eight lines are as follows : — 



"The first no. of the Flora Londinensis was published in Maj' 

 1775. 'Jlie Plants of the Work are all marked in this Book with 

 a C, as far as no. 67. 



No. 60 Nov. 1788 



— 65 June 1791 



— m June 1792 ? 



— 67 [no month'] 1793." 



Apparently therefore, 402 out of the whole number of 432 plates 

 were issued from May 1775 to the end of 1793. "No. 60" of the 

 MS. is quoted as " no. 59, in fasc. 5 " in Dr. Jackson's note, which is 

 probably correct, as Clarke saj^s the numbering of plates ends with 

 fasc. V, — not being carried on through fasc. vi., though some of the 

 plates are dated. To what extent Pulteney's MS. Fl. Anglica in 

 the Botanical Department of the Natural History Museum is based 

 on his annotated copy of Hudson in the Linnean Library I do not 

 know.— Frederic N. Williams. 



Plants in Flower at the End or December, 1918. — Several 

 notes on this subject have appeared in various periodicals, and it may 

 may be of interest to give some observations made in the neighbour- 

 hood of Taunton, Somerset. On December 20th, whilst engaged in 

 field-work amongst the bryophytes, I was so struck by the number 

 of plants still llovvering that I made a list of those observed. This 

 list during the remaining part of the year reached the surprising total 

 of 73, and could have been considerably extended if specially secluded 

 nooks had been explored, or if grasses, sedges, and other plants with 

 inconspicuous flowers, had been examined more carefully. No sedges 

 and only three grasses are included in the list. The weather had 

 been very mild even for the west of England, and accounts for this 

 large total. 



The plants found flowering fall into three groups : — (1) Those 

 usually flowering in Somerset during this period ; (2) Spring plants 

 which have had their times of flowering accelerated; (3) Late- 

 flowering plants. 



In the first group the Gorse ( Vlex europceus) was the only one 



