HISTORY OF BOTANY. 27 
The latter plant is said to have been found in two places at 
Grande Mare in the year 1812, but it no longer grew there in 
Smith’s time. 
A leap of thirty years or so from the date of Ansted’s Channel 
Islands brings us down to the period when the Guernsey Society of 
Natural Science, which had sunk into a condition of lethargy, awoke 
to new life, and by the publication of annual Zransactions gave a 
fresh impetus to the study of local natural history. One of the 
earliest papers was an exhaustive account of the Ferns of Guernsey, 
by Mr. G. T. Derrick, an observant resident botanist, who had been 
fortunate some time previously in discovering in this island the 
so-called Jersey Fern (Gymnogramme l-ptophylla). In 1891 I read 
a paper before the Society summarising my own botanical work 
during the preceding three years, and giving a list, with local 
distribution, of 636 phanerogams, eighteen ferns, and nine fern-allies 
found by myself in Guernsey ; about one-fifth of these were previ- 
ously unrecorded. Since then additions have been made to the list 
from time to time, most of which have been recorded in the annual 
Transactions of the Society. 
Having disposed of the Flowering Plants, and brought the record 
up to date, an endeavour was made to treat the cryptogamic flora of 
Guernsey in the same manner. The only existing lists—those 
contained in Ansted’s book on the Channel /slands—were mere 
names, giving no information at all about the local distribution ; 
moreover, it was evident that the lists stood in need of some 
revision. Accordingly, in 1892, I commenced a series of papers for 
the Zyansactions on the Cryptogams of Guernsey, presenting as a 
first instalment lists of 142 Mosses, 38 Hepaticae, and 243 Lichens. 
Then followed an enumeration of the Diatomaceae, amounting to 
322 species. In 1894 I contributed a paper on the Algae of Guernsey, 
giving a list of 236 Seaweeds, 43 Fresh-water Algae, and g I)esmids. 
Lastly, the Fungi, amounting to 612 species, formed the subject of 
two papers read before the Society in 1897 and 1898. 
So much for what may be termed the historical side of the 
subject. Let us now rapidly glance at the principal features of 
interest in different sections of the Guernsey flora. 
. The first thing that deserves to be mentioned, 
es although it is certainly not the first thing that will 
: attract the notice of a stranger, is the remarkable 
absence of quite a number of common plants which any one with a 
little knowledge of the botany of the south of England would expect 
to find here. The absence in small areas of species which are 
generally common is a matter which is often ignored; but it is one 
of considerable importance in the study of plant distribution. Here 
are some plants, for example, which have never been found in 
Guernsey ; and yet all of them are common in Normandy, the 
