SHORT NOTES, 431 



of the local flora, on which he published various scattered papers, 

 and finally, in 1875, a volume, which was favourably reviewed by 

 Dr. Trimen in this Journal for that year. Numerous notes, chiefly 

 on Sussex and North Wales plants, were contributed by him to our 

 pages. Mr. Roper was also interested in the nomenclature of 

 British plants, and the possession of a tine botanical library enabled 

 him to acquire a considerable knowledge of the literature of botany. 

 He bequeathed his herbarium of flowering plants to the Sussex 

 Coitnty Museum at Brighton. 



Mr. Roper was an active member of the Eastbourne Natural 

 History Society, of which he was at one time President ; he took a 

 prominent part in establishing the local museum and free library, 

 and in many other ways he showed his interest in local aftairs. He 

 had been a member of the Linnean Society since 1857. Our readers, 

 many of whom have experienced Mr. Roper's courtesy in trans- 

 mitting specimens of rare or local plants, will be glad to possess a 

 likeness of their correspondent ; for the opportunity of reproducing 

 this we are mdebted to Mr. Freeman Roper, who is himself 

 interested in botany, and has contributed to this Journal. 



SHORT NOTES. 



Maianthemum bifolium in Durham. — I came upon a large patch 

 of this plant — say twenty to thirty feet in extent — in a plantation 

 on a steepish bank near the Derwent under Hunstanworth, on the 

 Durham side of the river. It is just the habitat for it as I remember 

 the plant in Norway, so far as I can judge. The trees about are 

 spruce, larch, oak, birch, &c. ; the general undergrowth of the planta- 

 tion, Lnzida sijiratica, Oxalis, Geranium tojlvaticinn, with male, shield, 

 and oak ferns. The deciduous trees of the plantation not imme- 

 diately near, besides the above, are sycamore, beech, and mountain 

 ash — no trace of gardener's work, as Vinca, rhododendron, and such 

 like. I do not see why it should not be a genuine station. My friend 

 Mr. Howse, of the Newcastle Museum, informs me that a station 

 for the plant near Blauchland — I think probably the place in which 

 1 found it — is known to the Rev. Mr. Dunn of that village; he also 

 tells me that the late Mr, Dinning told him he had found it near 

 Rothbury, in central Northumberland, some years ago, — D, Oliver. 



Lamarck and De Candolle's Flore Franc^'aise (ed, 3), — This 

 work was published in five volumes, of which the last constitutes a 

 supplement. In many copies each volume is dated 1815, In the 

 Kew Herbarium copy there is attached to the title-page of vol. i. a 

 letter from Alphonse De Candolle, in which he says that many 

 copies are wrongly dated, and that the correct date for vols, i.-iv. 

 is 1805, not 1815 ; this latter date is correct only for the last 

 volume (the supplement). Many new plants (or at least new 

 names) are described by De Candolle in this work, and the 

 bringing back of the date to the same year as that of Persoon's 

 Synojms Plantamm is important from the priority point of view. 



