90 THE JOURNAL OP BOTANY 



Erophila prcBCox DC. Wigginton, Oxen, April 11th, 1914. The 

 wall tops of this neighbourhood are covered with Eroiohila, a fair 

 proportion of which is E. prcecox. These elusive micro-species are 

 all the more difficult to determine, in a great number of individual 

 cases (some of the specimens now sent are only doubtfully prcBCOx), 

 because the colonies are by no means homogeneous, and there is 

 much obvious transition between species, to say nothing of highly 

 probable crossing. Another difficulty arises from the fact that 

 pods vary in shape even on a single plant. The best and unmis- 

 takable _29rcgcoa; runs small. — H. J. Riddelsdell. 



Silene nutans L., var. dubia (Herbich) Williams Mon. Silene in 

 Journ. Linn. Soc. xxxii, 171 (1896). Shingle, Lydd, Kent, in great 

 quantity, July, 1904. This appears to have been first described 

 by Schur as S. transsylvanica in Oester. Bot. Zeit. viii (1858), 

 pp. 22, 287. Herbich's dubia was published in his Floi^a Bucoivina, 

 p. 388 (1859). In the Keio Index both names are merged into 

 S. nutans, but the publication of the latter wrongly cited as ex 

 Rohrbach's Monograph of 1868, and the date as usual is suppressed. 

 Dr. WilHams in his valuable Monograph (I.e.) put dubia as a 

 variety of S. nutans, and in the same year Rouy and Foucaud 

 (Fl. Fr. iii, p. 144) cites S. dubia and S. transsylvanica as 

 synonyms of their variety subverticillaris, the description of 

 which does not seem to happily fit our Kentish plant, which Mr. 

 0. E. Salmon in 1905 first clearly showed was distinct from 

 S. nutans. The longer petioled and narrow, lanceolate-acute stem 

 leaves, which are not so strongly viscid as in S. mitans, and the 

 narrower and more cylindric calyx, are marks which he rightly 

 emphasises. If kept as a species, it should stand as S. trans- 

 sylvanica Schur. ... A red flowered form was still earlier 

 described as a species by Vest in Flora (1821), p. 50, as S. rubens. 

 — G. C. Deuce. " This is the more graceful, less hairy, flavescent- 

 petalled plant I recorded as S. dubia Herb, in Journ. Bot., 1905, 

 p. 127 ; where it is mentioned my brother and I saw it in this 

 station (Dungeness) in 1888." — C. E. Salmon. 



Cerastium tetrandrum Curt. Sandhills, Askham, v.-c. 69b, 

 March 30th, 1914. Ironworks, sandhills, and golf links at Askham ; 

 limestone quarry at Staunton. Many plants are to be found 

 flowering during the first week in March. Most of the flowers 

 seem abnormally large through their being five-parted. The 

 lower leaves are markedly spathulate and deeply tinged with 

 reddish purple. Mr. Druce agrees with me that it is most likely 

 tetrandrum, and adds the remark that in all probability much of 

 what is named pcntandrum is this plant. — D. Lumb. 



Cerastium ? Hedgebanks, Rocklands, v.-c. 28, May 4th, 



1914. — F. Robinson. " This seems to be a robust or shade- 

 grown form of G. arvense L. It agrees with the description of 

 the var. latifolium Fenzl in Ledeb. Fl. Ross, i, p. 412 (1842), 

 which is as follows : ' Foliis caulinis majoribus, presaertim 

 superioribus e basi late ovata oblongis v. lanceolatis; ramorum ac 

 fasciculorum anguste lanceolatis v. linearibus ; omnibus utrinque 

 pubescentibus, cauliculis palmaribus spithamaeis et altioribus, 



