62 SHORT NOTES. 



accurately localized to enable one to be certain of the county or 

 vice-county : e. g. Teesdale alone is of no use as a locality for 

 county distribution, as the north bank of the Tees is in Durham, 

 and the south in Yorkshire. Such doubtful localities should be 

 altogether omitted. 



I shall have much pleasure in hearing from any bryologist who 

 can help me in either of the ways suggested, and shall be glad to 

 send a list of the 112 Watsonian vice-counties, with the boundaries 

 in the cases where the county is subdivided, as given in Watson's 

 Ci/hele, vol. iv. p. 139, 1859, to any one wishing it. I shall also 

 have pleasure in sending to any one details of the moss-lists I am 

 acquainted with for any particular vice-county. My address is — 

 44, Brompton Square, London, S.W. 



SHORT NOTES. 



Catharinea Hausknechtii (Jur. Mildej Broth, near Liverpool. 

 — I have great pleasure in adding the above moss to the Liverpool 

 florula (and I think also to the flora of the county), excellent fruiting 

 specimens having been found on Warbreck Moor by my son, Harold 

 Wheldon. It grew in deep, moist hollows, accompanied by Dicran- 

 eUa heteromalla, Anisothecium ruhniw, Barhula hrevifolia, B. ungidcu- 

 lata, Tortula aloides, and other common pelophilous species. — J. A. 

 Wheldon. 



H-^grometer made with Erodium Awns. — I have found the awns 

 of Erodium cicutariiini an excellent substitute for those of Stipa in 

 the Darwin transpiration hygrometer. Erodium is very common in 

 some parts of California. A piece of iron wire bent in the form of 

 a tripod serves to support the awns in the crystallizing dishes better 

 than the mechanical cross-bars that were supplied some time ago. 

 The seed on the awn is easily attached to the tripod by a small bit 

 of wax or paraffin with a hot needle. The tripod has the advantage 

 that it may be instantly revolved to any position inside the dish 

 without throwing the awn out of the axis of the vessel. The 

 Erodium. awn carries its own pointer. On the whole, less dexterity 

 is required in its manipulation, and it has been shown to be more 

 sensitive to humidity than the longer awns of Stipa. — Walter R. 

 Shaw in Bat. Gazette, November, 1897, p. 372. 



Cornwall and Devon Plantago forms. — After reading Mr. E.G. 

 Baker's critical survey of the European forms and varieties of 

 Plantago Coronopus L. (Proc. Dorset N. H. & A. F. C. xvii. 87), 

 I have taken the opportunity of collecting for comparison a series 

 of sea-side forms from Bude, N.E. Cornwall, and Braunton Bur- 

 rows, N. Devon. At the former the species is plentiful on the 

 rocks and shingle at the foot and on the downs at the top of the 

 cliffs, showing great diversity in size and leaf-outline. The com- 

 monest form has a perennial root and narrow pinnatifid leaves. 

 An abundant simple-leaved form is the young state of this (first 

 year or two) ; the very rare mature specimens with entire leaves 



