112 THE JOUK^AL OF BOTATY 



* 



interest to place on record ; it is not, I think, generally known, and 

 even escaped the attention of Mr. B. B. Woodward when compilinor his 

 invaluable Catalogue of the books in the Natural History Museum. 



James Beitte^. 



SHORT NOTES. 



Calamixtita yEBEODENsis Kevn. & Strobl. Mr, Diiice is mis- 

 taken in suggesting (p. o^) that his specimen of this plant is new to 

 Greece. Its presence in the Peloponnesus is recognized by Halacsy, 

 Fl. Gr. ii. p. 54-1, quoting Orphanides exsicc. no. 288, an example of 

 which was before me when I determined Mr. Druce's plant as 

 nebrodensis. In this connexion it may be noticed that Halacsy's 

 interpretation of C. "■ patavina'' is di:fferent from that of Boissier or 

 of Briquet. I have not seen specimens from the localities that he 

 quotes on p. 515, but one in Herb. Brit. Mus. detei-mined by him as 

 '' patacina'"' is the plant so ubiquitous in Southern Italy which 1 have 

 named C. pseudacinos (in Bull. Ort. Bot. Nap. iii. p. 301, 1911). 

 It is the Clinopodiiim minus Pulegii odore Momamim of Boccone ; 

 Mus. p. 50 & Tab. 45 f. A. C. C. Lacaita. 



The Uses of Bracken. Sir James Crichton Browne contributes 

 to the Observer for March 4 a letter from which the following is an 

 extract : " Knowing that the bracken contains jjotash. it occurred to 

 me two years ago that it might help ns, in some degree, in the dearth 

 of that fertiliser so essential to the cultivation of potatoes and sugar- 

 beet, from which Ave have suffered during the war, and I commnni- 

 cated with Professor Bayley Balfour of Edinburgh, from whom I 

 learned that in the month of June the fronds and stems hold as much 

 as 20 per cent, of potash, but that in August that amount is reduced 

 to 5 per cent., a large pro]iortion having been given back to the 

 rhizome or soil. I then wrote to Mr. Acland at the Board of Agri- 

 culture, suggesting that some experiments should be tried to determine 

 whether the cutting and incineration of bracken in June with a view 

 to obtaining its potash content would be economically feasible, seeing 

 that the j)rocess would at the same time restrict the ravages of an 

 aggressive pest. Mr. Acland promised that the proposed experiments 

 should be imdertaken, but I have not yet heard the result. Until I 

 read Dr. Shi})ley's statement I was not aware that starch from ..the 

 underground stem of the bracken was used as food, but I have long 

 known that the young shoots were regarded as a delicjicv in Japan. 

 Mr. K. Kishi, of the Japanese Embassy, kindly told me some time 

 ago how the shoots are there prepared for cooking. ' What you have 

 to do first,' he said, ' is to pick the tender parts of bracken shoots and 

 wash them carefully in fresh water. You then put them into boiling 

 water for two minutes or so, and afterwards i-emove them to cold water, 

 where they are left for a couple of liours. This is the end of prepara- 

 tion, and you may then use them for cooking in any Avay you like.' 

 During last summer I got from Scotland ])arcels of young bracken shoots- 

 which were prepared in the manner directed by Mr Kishi, and after- 



