HENRY GROVES 75 



in Hertfordshire and the adjoining counties, collecting many of 

 the rarer eastern county plants. One day I remember they set 

 out for Hitchin with the fixed intention of finding Phleum phala- 

 roides, although it had not previously been recorded on that side 

 of the county, and strangely enough before evening they had 

 found the grass in great abundance on the borders of Hertford- 

 shire and Bedfordshire, it being a new record for the latter 

 county. 



Our summer holidays from 1873 to 1879 were mostly spent at 

 our uncle's near Southampton. This gave us the opportunity of 

 exploring the New Forest and a great portion of the south 

 of Hampshire, with occasional visits to the Isle of Wight. We 

 turned up a number of plants not previously recorded for vice- 

 county 11, and collected many notes for Townsend's Flora of 

 the county, then in course of preparation. Our Hants botanising 

 brought us another lasting friendship, that of the best all-round 

 naturalist we have ever known, Mr. Ernest D. Marquand. 



Up to 1877 we were quite as keen hunters of the land and 

 freshwater mollusca as of plants. My brother was particularly 

 quick at finding those tiny creatures the Vertigos, and our 

 discovery of V. Moulinsiana as a British species brought him 

 the personal acquaintance of Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys. My brother 

 assisted Mr. Eimmer in the preparation of his Land and Fresh- 

 water Shells of the British Isles. 



About 1877 we began to study the CharaceaB. Mr. Hiern first 

 suggested the group to us as a profitable field for work, but it was 

 Professor Babington who supplied the principal incentive by 

 kindly presenting us with several important papers on Characese, 

 as well as the first two of Braun's Exsiccatae. We also received 

 much assistance from our esteemed friend Professor Otto Nord- 

 stedt. Our first note on these plants appeared in this Journal in 

 1878, when we recorded Chara connivens as a British plant. We 

 collected Characese assiduously, and borrowed a large number of 

 specimens for examination from friends and correspondents. 



In 1879, owing to the death of his principal, my brother left 

 the stockbroking business, and in the interval between this and 

 his employment at Queen Anne's Bounty Office, he spent a good 

 deal of time at the British Museum, making extracts of all he 

 could find relating to the Characeae, our object being in the first 

 place to produce an account of the British species. 



In 1880, when my brother was twenty-four, we published our 

 little " Eeview of the British Characese," which came out in three 

 instalments in the pages of this Journal. Had we waited a few 

 years longer we should no doubt have avoided some mistakes, but 

 as the greater part of the work and all the drawings were my 

 brother's, I may perhaps be pardoned for saying that on the 

 whole the " Review" was a fairly satisfactory piece of work, and 

 I think did something to stimulate the study of the group in this 

 country. From time to time for many years we published supple- 

 mentary notes giving extensions of distribution, &c, and describing 

 the several fresh species added to the flora, my brother supplying 



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