180 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



showed me a copy of a Flora Hihernica, which seemed not much 

 more than a catalogue and very imperfect. Some old plants he 

 has mentioned as new species, and showed me a specimen of the 

 Juncus sylvaticics for one. The copy that was in London * 

 is coming over here for correction, which I rather think he 

 w^ll have some difficulty in doing. He talked to me a great 

 deal ahout the Jamaica plants and the number he had formerly 

 sent to Linnaeus, who he told me corresponded with him above 

 twenty years ago." 



Two long letters from Walter Wade (d. 1825) contain interesting 

 matter. The first (Nov. 7, 1801) is mainly occupied with an 

 account of Eriocauhn septangular e, which he had earlier in the 

 year added to the Irish Flora. Wade had intended to write a 

 Flora Hihernica, but this plan was never carried out ; in his 

 Plantce Bariores in Hibernia inventae (1804), reprinted from the 

 Transactions of the Dublin Society, vol. iv, he indicated that 

 circumstances had occurred which might possibly prevent its 

 publication. The second letter gives an account of a visit to 

 Killarney and of plants there noticed (Nov. 1, 1805) and was 

 accompanied by a collection of Mosses gathered in that year and 

 in 1796. He refers to a proposed Flora of Ireland by Templeton 

 which had been indicated by Dawson Turner in the preface to his 

 Musci Hibernici, and again indicates that his own Flora was not 

 likely to appear. 



SHORT NOTES. 



PoTAMAGETON Drucei (pp. 37, 87). — Mr. Druce in the recently 

 published Beport for 1915 of the Botanical Society and Exchange 

 Club of the British Isles (p. 224) states that in this Journal for 

 1899 (p. 524) Fryer •' established it as a full species." I have 

 already pointed out (p. 87) that in 1907 Fryer's matured opinion 

 was that the plant was a hybrid {lucens x poly gonif otitis) and at a 

 still later date (August 30th, 1910) he wrote to me: ''Drucei 

 seems to be polygonifolius x lucens.'' It seems therefore hardly 

 right to quote as Fryer's final opinion a conclusion which he sub- 

 sequently abandoned. Mr. Druce (I.e.) says that he "found it 

 fruiting on the Loddon Eiver, its only known habitat " : if the 

 fruit were really ripe, it is of course an evidence against hybridity. 

 — Arthur Bennett. 



Primula elatior Jacq. — Mr. Wilhans (Prodr. Fl. Brit. p. 418 

 (1910)) mentions that "the scented plant as found in England 

 seems to have been described as a species by [E. H. L.] Krause 

 under the name of P. fragrans in Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. ii, 171, 

 1884." But in Prahl's Krit. Fl. Schlesw.-Holstein, p. 175 (1890), 

 E. H. L. Krause records the plant under P. elatior : "a. inodora 

 (Willdenow unter P. veris) ... /. uniflora Hennings ! . . . 

 1^. fragrans K. E. H. Krause ! Archiv. d. V. d. Freunde d. Naturg. 

 Mecklenb. 36, S. 130 [1883] . . . y. decipiens Sonder Fl. Hamb. 



* This was probably the one now in the Linnean Society's library. 



