MAIANTHEMUM BIFOLIUM IN ENGLAND 203 



south of England, as well as in its other localities in this country, 

 I have brought together all records known to me. 



It is undesirable to describe the Middlesex locality in detail, 

 although, as the plant is in private grounds, it is in some way 

 protected from extermination. On June 18th, 1912, Mr. H. B. 

 Watt showed me a good-sized patch of the Maianthemum growing 

 in a high open part of a wood, under a large beech-tree ; it 

 certainly has every appearance of being indigenous. The soil is a 

 sandy loam with much humus. The dominant tree is Quercus 

 sessiliflora ; hornbeam, sycamore, mountain ash, holly, Scots 

 pine, larch, and a few birches also occur, with two or three 

 specimens of Pyrus torminalis. Mr. Tansley, who knows the 

 spot, suggests that the beech may be native there ; and he also 

 considers that the Maianthemum may well be indigenous. The 

 plants were mostly quite past flowering, but hardly any fruits 

 were developing, indeed, nearly all the flowers had withered away 

 and left only the pedicels remaining. Specimens sent to Dr. 

 Trimen in August, 1866, by the then gardener, James Kay, are in 

 the British Museum Herbarium : these are in a similar condition 

 to those gathered last year. There are one or two fruits on each 

 specimen, and about a dozen pedicels without fruits, and the gar- 

 dener suggests that they may have been bitten off by birds or vermin. 



The first notice of Maianthemum as a Hampstead plant is to 

 be found in Park's Topography and Natural History of Hamp- 

 stead, pp. 28-9 (1818), where Hunter mentions it as growing in 

 the wood with Convallaria maialis, C. verticillata, and C. Polygo- 

 natum. The date of the record is 1813. Hunter was steward to 

 Lord Mansfield, the owner of the estate. 



In the volumes of the Phytologist, from 1813 onwards, there 

 are notes on Maianthemum at Hampstead, which it will be well to 

 summarize here. 



In 1829 Irvine observed it at Hampstead (see Phyt. iv. 232, 

 n.s. (I860)). The gardener, however, informed him that it was 

 no new discovery, for that it had been known in that wood in two 

 spots above fifty years. Its introduction was unknown. The 

 lower patch had disappeared several years ago, and its disappear- 

 ance was attributed to the alteration of a walk in the wood. The 

 higher patch had considerably increased in 1852 ; the plant 

 covered double the area it occupied in 1829. In 1852 the same 

 patch of plants was seen by Mr. H. L. de la Chaumette, who 

 remarked that he had observed it growing under almost exactly 

 similar conditions in Switzerland (Phyt. iv. p. 519 (1852)). 



In 1835 Edward Edwards, of Bexley, Kent, found several 

 patches of Maianthemum in the same locality, " apparently well 

 established and really wild, under the shade of fir-trees, near the 

 higher parts of the wood" (Phyt. i. 579). 



Mr. Borrer reports {Phytologist, ii. 432 (1846)) that he found 

 the plant existing " in two large patches, one of them a circular 

 one of seven paces in diameter, in a part of the park which is 

 said to have been never cleared from the aboriginal forest. Opinion 

 will vary as to whether it is indigenous or not." 



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