318 THE JOUR:ffAL OF BOTANY 



handsome clumps with its brilliantly glaucous sheaths and yellow 

 anthers. The spikes were larger and the awns longer than in geni- 

 culatvs, and the plants were taller and more robust, althougli 

 decidedly geniculate near the base. The glumes and pales reminded 

 one more of j^rafensis, but the ligule was long, as in geniculatiis. 

 A. 2>rafensis grew not very far away in compai-atively dry ground, 

 and it was noticeable that the hybrid preferred spots at the tops of 

 the dyke banks, and did not choose, as is often the case with genicii- 

 lafus, to have its roots in the water. These Araberley examples seem 

 to agi-ee well wnth Messrs. Bromwich & Jackson's Warwickshire 

 plant (B.E.C. Eep. 1900, 650) and the Rev. H. P. Reader's speci- 

 mens of the hvbrid from Staffordshire (Watson B.E.C. Rep., 1900— 

 1, :M.). Mr. A. B. Jackson (Journ. Bot. 1901, 232) has also called 

 attention to tlie remarkably glaucous sheath — a character which first 

 caused us to take special notice of the plant." 



Mr. Groves notes on a plant sent from Nailsea Moor, N. Somerset, 

 as " Chara vulgaris L., small form, ? var. crassicaulis " : "A form 

 Avith broad secondary cortical-cells, well-developed spine-cells, and 

 Avith the posterior bract-cells developed. Nothing like so extreme a 

 plant as the var, or subsp. crassicaulis, which has a thick stem and 

 more definitely botuliform bract and spine-cells." 



The foregoing extracts, which will we think interest a wider 

 circle than that afforded by the Club, are but examples of the 

 contents of the Report. We note Avith pleasure the absence of plants 

 which owe their jjresence among us to mill-sweepings or rubbish- 

 heaps and in most cases " have their day and cease to be " even 

 before their names appear in print. 



J. W. H. TRAIL, M.D., F.R.S. 



James Wtlijam Heleists Teail, son of the Rev. Samuel Trail, 

 M.D., LL.D., minister of Birsay and Harra}^ in Orkney, afterwards 

 professor of systematic theology in Aberdeen UniYersit}^ and Helen, 

 daughter of Dr. Hercules Scott, professor of moral philosophy, King's 

 College, Aberdeen, was born at Birsa}'' on 4 March, 1851. Educated 

 in the first instance at home, he was sent in due course to the 

 Grammar School, Old Aberdeen, then famous for its classical training. 

 From school Trail entered, in 1866, the arts faculty of the University 

 of Aberdeen. 



Dr. Trail had formed a high estimate of the lad's capacit}^ and 

 entei-tained the hope that his son, like himself, might become a 

 churchman. But at school Trail hardly fulfilled his father's expecta- 

 tions. Always a diligent pupil he accomplished the tasks he Avas set, 

 but shoAA^ed no promise of attaining distinction as a classical scholar. 

 Perhaps this was largely due to Trail's addiction to natural histor}^ 

 pursuits, Avhich was so pronounced as to earn from his school-mates a 

 kindly if playful agnomen which had not yet fallen out of use Avhen 

 he became an undergraduate. His companions at school had, in fact, 

 as sometimes hajjpens, formed a sounder judgment Avith regard to his 

 mental powers lluin had his teachers. 



