11 
tion, at no very distant date, of the publication of a flora of the county. I have 
therefore selected mainly, as the subject of my notes to-day, those plants upon 
which practical information is required, whether of their existence or of their 
range in our area: and I have the more pleasure in bringing the subject before 
you to-day, because it is the east of the county, upon which the existing notes for 
the flora are the poorest: I hope therefore to be able to enlist the zeal of the 
botanical members of the Malvern Club, whose guests we are to-day, in furnish- 
ing material in the shape of notes and dried specimens, so as to prevent the very 
undesirable result of certain districts being a comparative blank both in the county 
flora and in the county herbarium. In this division of the county—that is in the 
whole of the Districts 4, 5, 8 and 9, as defined in the First Part of the Hereford- 
shire Flora, published in the Transactions of the Woolhope Club for 1866; from 
Ledbury in the south to Ludlow in the north—I have never myself had oppor- 
tunity of working. Yet they are richer perhaps than most parts of Herefordshire 
in rarities: and it has been impressed upon me in going through the existing 
Notes for the Herefordshire Flora, that the Malvern Hills present in some respects 
a peculiar vegetation, distinct from the rest of Herefordshire. Not to dwell upon 
Epipogium aphyllum once found at Tedstone Delamere, we have no difficulty in 
pointing out other rare plants characteristic of their districts. We have three 
roses—spinosis-sirna, Donniana, and systyla only recorded from these districts ; 
two of them in close proximity to the Malvern Hills: Pimpinella magna confined 
to a single spot in District 4: Hpipactis media, and Carex axillaris, so exceedingly 
rare in the rest of the county, reported as common about the Malverns : Plantago 
Coronopus, Hordeum sylvaticum, and Equisetum hyemale, each of them confined to 
single localities in the rest of the county, reappearing here. These remarks with 
regard to rarities, might be much extended. But while no botanist neglects rari- 
ties, many pass over common plants. Our list of the common plants for three of 
the districts mentioned—the Ledbury, Bromyard and Frome District, and espe- 
cially the last two—are exceedingly scant ; and it ought to be remembered that 
a good deal of the interest of a local flora consists in its completeness—a complete- 
ness which, within its narrow local range, ought to be attainable to a high degree. 
I have adopted a rough classification of my material suitable to the practical 
character of the object in view in these notes: mentioning first a few rarities 
which, as recent additions to the county Flora, I thought members of the club 
would like to hear of, and which I was unwilling therefore entirely to pass over: 
going on from them to local plants, the records of which needed amplification or 
re-examination. Next I have mentioned a number of names recorded in our flora 
for some years upon evidence more or less doubtful, and requiring therefore veri- 
fication, at least so far as to determine whether they still exist in old localities. 
Lastly I have mentioned a few puzzling or critical genera, the forms of which need 
working out. This classification, it will at once be perceived, is the reverse of 
scientific—its divisions not even being mutually exclusive ; still it was convenient 
towards lumping together my remarks. 
I will only add, that in the case of any and every plant mentioned in the 
following Notes, dried specimens will be received with thanks, to be incorporated 
