82 THE JOUR-NML OF BOTAyY 



1 take this opportunitv to publish an account of a particularly- 

 interesting new species of the Sapotaceous genus St/ nsepa linn, coWectedi 

 br Mr. Talbot in Southern Nigeria some eighteen months ago. 



Synsepalum glycydora, sp. nov. 



Ramulis glaberrimis angulatis, mox cortice rugosulo indutis. Folia- 

 glabra plerumque oblanceolata, 9-17 era. X Sd-o"o cm., utrinque 

 glabra, utrinque acuminata, apice obtusissima, venis secundariis- 

 tenuibus subtus valde prominentibus utrinque ca. 10.. Flores e 

 ramulorum cortice oriuncli sessiles ; calycis segmenta ovata subacuta 

 sericea ; coroUcB fere glabriB tubus gracilis e calyce 2-8 mm. exsertus, 

 lobi pro rata angusti ca. 2 mm. longi. Fructus subglobo^us, apice 

 breviter acuminatus, 2-3 cm. longus, alte costatus. 



S. Nigeria : Degema division, Amaury Talhof 8720! 



Related to S. sfipulatum Engl., but the venation is much less 

 close, and the flowers sessile. Mr. Talbot states that the tVuit has 

 the remarkable property of a^ecting the palate, so that the bitterest 

 things taste almost painfully sweet if only a small piece of the fruit 

 be chewed at the same time. The effect lasts for some hours. These 

 fruits may therefore have some considerable economic importance. 



SHORT NOTES. 



SiLEXE ANGLiCA. In the 1915 Report of the Botanical Exchange- 

 Club, p. 829, I find the following : — " Silene anglica L. . . . also near 

 High Hall Wood, Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, September 16, 1915. 

 In S. Lincolnshire it is not uncommon in sandy fields on Kimmeridge 

 Clay and kindred soils with. Filago minima, Scleranthiis annuus, 

 Silene nociijlora, Spergula sativa, Oo^nifhopus perpusiUus, &c, — A. 

 R. Horwood." There is no outcrop of Kimmeridge clay in S. Lines. 

 53 at all. WoodliaU Spa is not in S. Lines., but in N. Lines. 54. 

 Silene anglica does not grow anywhere in this county on blown sand 

 on this clay,, so far as my recoixls show. Mr. Horwood found this 

 extra-areal species exactly where Sir Joseph Banks found it in 17S5, 

 and on exactly the same soil. There is no blown sand within twenty - 

 five miles, and there are no sand beds in our local Kimmeridge clay. 

 High Hall Wood is on chalky Boulder Clay, a!id the wood side where 

 this species has gi'own for so long is on Plateau Gravel. It is only 

 recorded as an outs-ider, a pure agricultural colonist, in six out of our 

 eighteen divisions. It is only on the Rateau Gravel, where S. qiiin- 

 quei'ulnrra was along with it m fair quantity sixt}" years ago, that 

 it has been able to survive with us. The list of species fouiul 

 along with it on the Plateau Gravel is accurate enough, as far 

 as it goes, but it is a N. Lines, list. No mass of this same gravel in 

 S. Lines, known to me has such a list, though the Fen Gi-avel list of 

 the southern vice-county is nearly the same, as the flora lists will 

 show. Mr. Horwood errs in good company, for there is some strange 

 fatality abr)ut outside botanists who \asit Lincolnshire. That most 

 accurate man H. C. Watson himself was no exception, as the first 

 edition of the Topographical Botany shows. He visited tliis county 



