February igth, igoi.] PROCEEDINGS. 



Ordinary Meeting, February rgth, 1901. 

 Horace Lamb, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors of the 

 books upon the table. 



Mr. Charles Bailey made the following communication 

 "On Ranunculus Bachii, Wirtgen, as a form of 

 Ranunculus fluitans, Lamk." 



Ranunculus fluitans, Lamk., like all the members of the 

 Batrachium section of the genus, is a very polymorphic aquatic 

 plant, as is plainly to be seen from the series of British examples 

 now exhibited. In the south of England, as in the Avon at 

 Christchurch, the stout stems are several feet in length ; the 

 leaves and peduncles are from six inches to a foot long ; and the 

 flowers are as large as a shilling or a fiorin. It is a frequent 

 plant in the Herefordshire Wye, and in the Severn ; but in our 

 immediate neighbourhood I have gathered it in but one station, 

 namely, in the Derbyshire Derwent, at WhatstandwelL The 

 plant of the Derbyshire Wye, at Buxton, Miller's Dale, Lathkill 

 Dale, &c., is another species — Ranunculus psendo fluitans, 

 "Bab.," Hiern. ThQ R. fluitans also occurs in canals and in 

 swift running brooks, but its most congenial station is a well- 

 filled river. It becomes less frequent in Great Britain as we 

 ascend northwards, and it just manages to occupy a few of the 

 southern counties of Scotland. 



In many of its stations there occur smaller examples to 

 which the name of Ranunculus Bachii has been given ; in this 

 state, as in some of the examples from the Severn and the Tweed, 

 it occasionally produces small tripartite floating leaves. During 

 a holiday in Berwickshire last July, I had a good opportunity of 

 studying this small-flowered form, as the water-courses of that 



