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unlike, I should never trust in other characters again.” Mr. Bennett comment 
ing upon this in a letter to myself says: ‘‘I agree, and I differ from him. It is 
not the typical plant of Wolfgang, as I have seen specimens named, and from 
Wolfgang himself, from Lithuania and Russia. But I suspect it to be the Scandi- 
navian P. salicifolius var. lanceolatus of Hartmann’s Flora.” I have only to add 
that the fruit of this Pondweed should be searched for diligently in the Wye. 
In certain seasons the plant is to be found abundantly in spots in the Ross 
district, and flowers freely : but I have been unable to detect it in fruit. 
Potamogeton lucens L., var. decipiens. In 1876 I sent up to Mr. Baker, 
of Kew, a very broad-leaved Pondweed from the Wye near Sellack, doubtfully 
naming it thus. Mr, Baker confirmed my supposition as to its name: but Dr. 
Boswell (in the Report of the Exchange Club for that year) contested the 
accuracy of this determination, on account of the serrated margin of the leaves, 
and the small fibres, and was inclined to call it nitens Web.—a name which 
Dr. Bull, who had seen fresh specimens, had previously suggested for it. But 
both Mr. Bennett, and Mr. Morong, to whom the plant was submitted last year, 
call it ‘* decipiens,” and disagree in toto with Dr. Boswell’s name of “‘ nitens.” I 
cannot help, myself, believing it to be rightly named ‘‘ decipiens ”—with which it 
closely agrees in general habit and character. I have only noticed it in two spots, 
both near the railway bridge over the Wye at Strangford ; nor have I been able to 
find the fruit, though it flowered in 1876. I trust that this season something more 
of these Potamogetons may be seen. The continued high waters of the last three 
summers have however so much changed the river bed, that last summer not a 
trace of either of them was to be found at their old habitats. But no doubt they 
are only awaiting a favourable season, such as the present, to reappear. 
One or two brief remarks upon two more species, and I have done. The two 
grass-leaved species, obtusifolius and mucronatus—the latter quite a rarity—both 
of them owe their place in our County Flora to the diligence and close observation 
of our friend Mr. Burton Watkins. Of obtusifolius I have only to say that it is 
curiously enough confined to one corner of the county—namely the parishes of 
Llangarren and Welsh Newton—but in these it is abundant. I will not suggest 
the explanation that this is the neighbourhood in which Mr. Watkins lives, lest 
other botanists should think I was insulting them; and after all this can only be a 
partial explanation, since Mr. Purchas never found it in the Ross district. 
Mucronatus is an inhabitant solely of the Hereford and Ledbury canal, where it 
was found first by Mr. Watkins at Westhide, and afterwards turned out to be 
abundant nearer Hereford. This year I see it fine and abundant in the canal 
opposite Barr’s Court railway station, where I may mention to our Hereford 
friends this plant is just at present in fine flower and fruit. 
T have now only to thank you in behalf of my mud and ditch friends for your 
patient hearing : and to assure you on their part, that if you will not mind soiling 
your boots for them in July and August, they will repay you with a rich harvest 
for your collecting cases and Herbaria. 
