EHPORT OF THE DEPAKl'MENT OF BOTANY, BRITISH MUSEUM. 215 



■and lane at Hartlebury. Thus their flora by sagacious observation was 

 being added to year after year, and he had therefore determined to priat 

 «. supplement to the volume of the " Botany of Worcestershire." Mr. 

 Lees then referred to the foreign plants that in some curious way had got 

 into this country, whose immigration ought to be noticed. This very 

 spring Mr. Thompson had conducted him to waste lands and rubbish 

 heaps near Hoo Mill, in the vicinity of Kidderminster, where some 

 quantity of Ahjssum calycinum was growing, and also the alien plants 

 Xanthium spinosam, Polypogon monspeliensis, and Medicago denticulata. 



Stellaeia umbeosa, Opitz. — In May of last year I formed my first 

 practical acquaintance with the form of Stellaria media we know as 

 S. umbrosa, Opitz, by gathering the plant from a roadside shady bank 

 about halfway betweeen Beeston station and the castle, in Cheshire.* 

 It Was growing there in good quantity, and I subsequently found that 

 it was thinly scattered through the surrounding district, retaining in 

 all cases the characteristics as given in Prof. Babingtou's " Manual," 

 by which it is distinguished from the type. Bearing in mind the 

 statement in the Exchange Club Eeport for 1871 of this plant revert- 

 ing to ordinary S. media in a single generation, and further that this 

 statement was at variance with the experience of Mr. H. C. Watson as 

 mentioned by him in Comp. Cyb. Brit., I forwarded to Mr. Watson 

 ripe seed, which he sowed, and I quote the result from a letter just 

 received from him : " . . . I sowed some of the seeds, which produced 

 plants, in a small flower-pot. The cluster of young plants was trans- 

 ferred to the open ground. They attained a good size, but produced 

 no flowers until the spring of this year. All are true umbrosa, as 

 you will see by the two pieces enclosed herewith in example of them."' 

 "Years ago Mr. Edwards found S. uynbrosa in Kent, and sent me 

 seeds. These were sown and came up true just as yours have done." 

 Mr. Watson further remarks about the Rev. G. S. Streatfeild's record 

 in the Exchange Club Report: " He does not say that he took any 

 special precautions to make sure that no seeds of ordinary ^S'. media 

 were in the mould in his ' garden.' It is not easy to obtain garden 

 mould free from Chickweed seed." I presume a specimen of the plant 

 Mr. Streatfeild experimented with was actually sent to the Exchange 

 Club, or from the wording of his note I should have guessed he had 

 mistaken the wood form of ,S'. media for S. umbrosa. — E. M. Webb. 



OFFICIAL REPORT FOR 1875 OF THE DEPARTMEJS'T OF 



BOTANY IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



Br W. Caeeuthers, F.R.S. 



The work of incorporating plants in the General Herbarium has 

 been actively carried on during the past year. The following collec- 

 tions have been either entirely or in part systematically arranged and 

 inserted in their placs. The large collection of plants bequeathed by 



* For another Cheshire locality see Journ. Bot., 1871, p. 245. 



