150 FLORA OF SOMERSET. 



suffering class," but even worms will turn (at least so it is reported), 

 and now that a leader lias appeared, British botanists may arise 

 and overthrow the tyranny of the bold bad men who drew up the 

 London Cdtulogue. 



"However," concludes Mr, Clarke, '^ Uberavi animam meam." 



^°^^^^^I- James Britten. 



Flora of Somerset. BytheEev. R. P.Murray,M.A.,F.L.S. Taunton: 

 Barnicott & Pearce. 1896. 8vo, pp. Ixi, 437. Price 16s. net. 



Mr. Murray's Flora, which has appeared in four numbers of 

 the Proceedincjs of the Somerset Archfeological and Natural History 

 Society, is now offered to the botanical public in one volume. 

 Those acquainted with the author's previous work expected nothing 

 less than a Flora of first-class botanical excellence. This expecta- 

 tion will be fully realized. The information, moreover, is remark- 

 ably easy of access ; it is arranged on a clear and simple plan, 

 printed in good type without crowding or excessive abbreviation, 

 and above all it is followed by one excellent index of all the species 

 mentioned. For the neatness and excellent " get-up" of the book 

 the local publishers deserve high commendation. A good though 

 somewhat stiff representation of the Cheddar pink faces the title- 

 page. 



The introduction gives agricultural, physical, and meteoro- 

 logical statistics of the county, lists of species coming under 

 Watson's various types of distribution (Atlantic 43, Germanic 5, 

 Scottish 15), an enumeration of the six species (two now extinct) 

 and one variety peculiar to the county, adding a few more confined 

 to this and a few other counties. There follows a list of plants of 

 doubtful occurrence, and finally ten extinctions. Fortunate in- 

 deed, nowadays, is the author who has not to reveal an increased 

 number of species exterminated by drainage, building, or collectors' 

 greediness. The losses of Somerset, however, are really smaller 

 than the above figure represents, for two (Vicia lutea L. and 

 V. hi/brida L.) which grew "in a sand-pit," and "potato-grounds" 

 seem hardly to have deserved the name of "natives." The 

 undoubtedly wild British stations of V. hitea are on sea-cliffs and 

 beaches. Its position on Glastonbury Tor in cultivated ground 

 conforms better with its continental habitat, from which we may 

 suppose it to have come, as it undoubtedly has in Kent. V. 

 hybrida is subject to the same criticism, and their disappearance is 

 far less serious than the extinction of a native. Another of the 

 ten, Scirpus HoloscJmnus, has been rediscovered, and appears in the 

 " Further Addenda." The others seem to be really lost. Mr. 

 Murray draws a pathetic picture of Cypenis lovgus in 1888, " still 

 dragging on a miserable existence, appearing here and there 

 among potatoes . . . doomed if not already succumbed in the 

 struggle for existence." Exemplary reticence with regard to its 

 exact locality may save Aqileniwn septentrionale from a like fate at 

 the hand of " fern collectors." 



