ON UTRICULAETA NEGLECTA. 1 43 



genus, I will now let a (perhaps premature) notice of the latter 

 carry along with it an epitome of the existing information con- 

 cerning the former as a British plant. I employ the qualifying words 

 " perhaps premature " from the difficulty that it will be readily appre- 

 ciated must attach to absolute identification when comparing dried 

 specimens of the delicate portions of such plants as Utricularia, 

 especially when the specimens are old, glued down, and not over care- 

 fully prepared originally. I have used as much care as I am capable 

 of using, and in favour of ray conclusion have the confirmatory 

 opinion of Mr. J. G. Baker. At any rate, I have this confidence, that 

 I prefer to take the risk of a botanical " mare's-nest," rather than let 

 the matter lie in abeyance without any prospect on my individual part 

 of being able to search further into it. The present notice may put 

 others on the track, and I am sure additional good will issue from my re- 

 marks, should they only incite a closer examination of our water-plants, 

 conspicuous and inconspicuous, during the coming botanical season. 



In the first edition of his " Manual" (1843) Utricularia neglecta 

 was one of those plants sagaciously pointed out by Mr. Babington as 

 likely to be found with us if searched for. This hint was continued in 

 the two following editions, and in ed. iv. (1856), although the plant 

 continues in square brackets, denoting no legitimate position in the 

 Flora, the words " apparently a native of the Fen country " are added. 

 In the succeeding edition of six years later, this statement is ex- 

 changed for the words " may occur," and no mention is made of the 

 plant in his " Flora of Cambridgeshire " (1860). Between the dates 

 of these editions, Mr. Gibson's " Flora of Essex" was completed and 

 published, in which is a note under U. vulgaris, that " U. neglecta, 

 Lehm., has been confounded with this and should be looked for." 

 Whether the writer means that the plant has been confounded by 

 British botanists, or by those of the Continent, or by both, is not 

 clear. If by the first-named, I presume he excluded " the Fen 

 country " locality, as that was the only one that had been suggested, 

 and on the strength of it considered the extension into Essex pro- 

 bable. The first substantial statement of the occurrence of the species 

 in England was made in 1867, in an editorial communication to 

 "Journal of Botany," vol. v., p. 73, viz., "We have been shown a 

 specimen of this plant in the herbarium of the British Museum, col- 

 lected by the late Ed. Forster, in a gravel-pit in Henhault Forest, 

 Essex." The sheet of specimens here referred to bears the pencil 

 name " U. neglecta ? " in the handwriting of the Eev. W. W. New- 

 bould. Early in this same year (April 1867) the part of " English 

 Botany " containing LentihulariacecB was published, in which Mr. 

 Syme mentions the above locality, and names another in the same 

 county, from a specimen he possessed, collected, in 1837 by Mr. 

 Wallis (as U. vulgaris — fide Proc. of Botanical Society (1839), p. 37). 

 Both these Essex stations are duly quoted in the 6th ed. of Prof. 

 Babington's " Manual," also issued in 1867, and later on in that year 

 Mr. Wintle records the plant from the Gloucester and Berkeley 

 Canal (" Journal of Botany," v. 279). These three localities are not 

 added to in the last edition of the "Manual " (1874). Perhaps it was 

 overlooked that in the meantime Mr. Watson had stated in the " Comp. 

 Cyb. Brit." regarding our plant, that, "naming by the elongate and 

 nearly erect pedicel?, examples are preserved in my herbarium from 



