SIIOliT NOTES 3'J1 



can rarely for years together ripen proper seed on account of spring 

 frosts. I was 3^ears before I could get seed of it, or of Ranun- 

 culus Flcaria, for my working seed collection. I soon discovered 

 that where it did not ripen seed it could grow fresh plants from its 

 leaves. Till quite lately the opportunity for studying the growth 

 of these new plants was lacking, though I was perfectly certain it 

 had nothing to do with damp seasons, for I have found most of my 

 specimens in unusually dry ones, and the true double -flowered form 

 twice. I have during the last few seasons discovered another thing 

 which prevents C. prate nsis developing seeds, and have been able to 

 stud}' fresh plant development under these circumstances. The same 

 density of shade which prevents Carex stricta from flowering, though 

 it has its filamentous sheaths and every other characteristic of the 

 species, is sufKcient to prevent C. pratensis from doing so ; though 

 i*oa trivialis and Agrnstis alba can just produce depleted spikes 

 (v. )ieniorosa) to grow seeds. I have been watching an overshaded 

 pond in a covert in Lincolnshire, to discover in what order the species 

 departed as the overshadowing grew more dense. I discovered that 

 at midsummer nearly every plant of C pratensis was carrying a young- 

 plant on its leaves or had only just dropped it. I find that in this 

 ease, produced wholly by overshading, the new plant bud is produced 

 at that spot on the up23er leaflet where all the venation joins into one 

 for the stalk of the leaf. As yet I have only detected them on the 

 upper leaflet, never on the side leaflets, in these depleted plants, 

 though often after they have lost connection with the parent leaflet, 

 they slip down to another position, for their roots always clasp the 

 leaflet stalk. Many of the leaves have lost all their leaflets but the 

 tei'minal one in the shade. The time of year for the first sign of 

 these budding plants is September or early October. They drop off 

 the following summer. I am sending a sheet of specimens for the 

 British collection at the National Herbarium. — E. A. Woodruffe- 

 Peacock. 



Hertfordshire Plaxts. The genera Botrycliium and Colclncum ^ 

 are not represented in Pryor's Flora of Hertfordshire. As to the 

 former, the following entry occurs in Babington's diary for 1882 : 

 " June 7. We went with Professor and Mrs. Cowell to Mr. Pollard's, 

 at High Down, near Hitchin. We found Botrychiiim Lunaria for 

 the lirst time in Herts" (^Memorials of Bahinr/ton, 234). As to the 

 latter, Sims (Bot. Mag. t. 2673 : 1826) figures and describes as 

 Colchicum crociflorum a plant of which he says : " This Colchicum, 

 wdiich appears to us to be an undescribed species, was raised at the 

 Botanical Garden belonging to the Apothecaries' Company. It was 

 one of a selection of roots of the officinal Colchicum had at the Hall 

 from three different counties, from which, Mi-. Anderson informs us, 

 as many different species were produced. The one from which our 

 drawing was taken was supposed to be collected in the neighbourhood 

 of Hertford, but appears to us to be different from the autumnale 

 figured in English Botan}'." The name is retained in Index Kewensis, 

 but Mr. Baker (in Journ. Linn. Soc. xvii 428 : 1880), who incorrectly 

 attributes it to Anderson, regards it as synonymous with C. atitiim- 

 n ale, which however the figure scarcely resembles. It is of course 



