NOTES ON THE JIOTANY OF EXPERIMENTAL GEASS-PLOTS. 303 



vermiculai'is, 90. Hygrophorus cocciaeus, 91. H. virgineus, 92. H. 

 pratensis, 93. Marasmius oreades. 



=93 



The foregoing list, it will be seen, includes several species not 

 eommoQly met with on meadow land, the presence of which may be 

 legarded as accidental. Such, for instance, as Ranicnculus auricomwi, 

 l^i'cia Cracca and sepium, Galiuni Aparine, Sonchus oleraceus, Fritillaria 

 Meleagris, and Ornithogalum umhcllatum. These, and some twenty 

 other species, are represented only by a few individuals, and, practically 

 speaking, form no appreciable proportion of the crop. On the other 

 liand, many common meadow plants w ill be missed, as Li/clmis Flos-cucuU 

 and other species, Lotus major, Silaus pratensis, and Senecio Jacohaa. 

 The elevated situation and good drainage explain the almost total 

 absence of Cypsracem, and other moisture-loving plants. It has 

 already been mentioned that we have good evidence that the herbage 

 was tolerably uniform all over the plots when the experiments were 

 first started. This is afforded by the present composition of the herb- 

 age around the experimental grounds, and more particularly that of 

 the two plots left unmanured trom the beginning. These plots are 

 each a quarter of an acre in extent, and, exclusive of the Fungi, about 

 sixty of the remaining eighty-two species enumerated above occur on 

 each plot, and fifty of these were represented in the sample separated 

 into its constituent species in 1872. With the exception of ab )ut 

 half-a-dozcn rare species they are the same on both plots. Now, if 

 we compare the flora of an unmanured plot with that of 11«, a 

 contiguous plot, we find the number of species reduced to eighteen, 

 or less than one-third, whereof sixteen were found in the sample. 

 This plot, it should be mentioned, receives an annual dressing of 

 300 lbs. sulphate of potass, 100 lbs. sulphate of soda, 100 lbs. sulphate 

 of magnesia, 3| cvvts. superphosphate of lime, and 800 lbs. ot am- 

 monia-salts per acre. The effect of this large quantity of manure is 

 to stimulate some of the coarser-growing grasses and other plants to 

 extraordinary growth, and crowd out or otherwise cause to disappear, 

 about forty species, some of which on the unmanured plot hold an 

 equally good or better footing in the struggle for existence. The 

 species found in the sample taken from li» in 1872 are : — Anthox- 

 (i)dhum odoratum, Alopecurus pratensis, Agrostis vulgaris, Holcus 

 hnuitus, Arena elatior, A. flavescejis, Poa pratensis, P. trivialis, Lactylis 

 glomerata, Festuca oviua, Bromus mollis (a fragment), Trifolium repens 

 (a few leaves only), Conopochum demcdatum, Prunella vulgaris (pro- 

 bably from quite near the margin of the plot, and not really belonging 

 to it), Puimex Acetosa, and Carex prcecox (a leaf or two). J3ut a lew 

 figures will give a better idea of the composition of the herbage of this 



