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WILLIAM SHERAED'S JERSEY PLANTS. 

 By G. Claridge Deuce, M.A. 



A QUESTION sent me by my friend Mr. T. W. Attenborough, who 

 contemplates, with Mr. S. Guiton, preparing a new edition of the 

 Jersey Flora, induced me to refer to the list of plants from that 

 island which is given as an Appendix to the first edition of Ray's 

 Synopsis (1690). This resulted in finding a first record for Hamp- 

 shire and probably the earliest record for Britain of SjJergularia 

 media Presl. {S. marginata), which appears to have hitherto 

 escaped notice. Sherard (p. 239) says : " Spergula semine foliaceo 

 nigro, circulo membranaceo albo cincto iJor^. Bless. On the shore 

 everywhere. I have found it near Southampton. I know not 

 whether all our Maritimse be not sem. foliaceo. Yea they are so : 

 and possibly this may be no other than the common maritime 

 Spergula." Sherard was doubtless wrong in referring it to 

 Morison's plant, but we are quite safe in identifying it with 

 S. media Presl. It may be recalled that Sherard records a plant 

 which we identify as Spergula pentandra (with the same winged 

 membranous margin to the seed) from Ireland, but it has never 

 been verified.* This record much antedates that given byTownsend 

 in the Flora Hampshire, and the plant still occurs at Millbrook, 

 near Southampton, where doubtless Sherard saw it. 



Babington (Pref. Prim. Fl. Sarn.) somewhat depreciatingly 

 alludes to Sherard's plants ; he says "None of them [are] of much 

 interest and all will be found recorded in the following pages." 

 As a matter of fact he gives no reference to the Spergularia, has 

 omitted two others, and wrongly identified a third. So far from 

 being of little interest, the list is the earliest evidence for the 

 occurrence in the island of Gnaphalium luteo-album, Helianthe- 

 mum gutiatum, Echiimi plantagineum, Scrophularia Scorodonia, 

 Asplenium lanceolaticm, Geranium purpureum : ' Gramen Alope- 

 curoides spica aspera brevi O.B." (Cynosums ecliinatus) which is 

 wrongly referred to Bromus rigidus in the PrimiticB, Bartsia 

 viscosa and Sibihorpia europcea are also included. This record of 

 the last species is omitted both by Babington and Lester Garland : 

 the plant had only three years before been made known as British 

 by Ray, who in his second edition (1696) adds Sherard's Jersey 

 locality without, however, citing his name for it. 



There is some doubt as to the "Gramen Arundinaceum acerosa 

 gluma" which Babington identifies as Phalaris arundinacea, since 

 Sherard says " 'Tis different from Parkinson's .... Mr. Bobert 

 will have it to be the Gram, paniculatum folio variegato C.B., only 

 not strip'd." P. arundinacea is not found in Jersey except as the 

 striped Canary Grass, a garden outcast. Calamagrostis epigeios, 

 which does occur, was a plant probably well known to Sherard ; is 

 it possible that P. minor, a very different looking grass, was the 

 one seen ? 



[* See Journ. Bot. 1890, 302, 343.— Ed. Journ. Bot.] 



