60 GUERNSE Y. 
of its occurrence in this island has been kindly furnished by Mr. 
L. V. Lester, of Jersey, who, having seen a Guernsey specimen in 
Mr. J. Piquet’s herbarium, wrote for particulars at my request, and 
received the following reply from Mr. Piquet: ‘I gathered /vankenia 
Jaevis at the salt-pans in the north of Guernsey, either in the Vale 
parish or St. Sampson’s, many years ago with Mr. Wolsey, a good 
local botanist. There was plenty of it.’ The date would be about 
1864 or 1865. 
POLYGALACEAE. 
Polygala vulgaris, L. Milkwort. 
Native. First record: Gosselin, 1815. 
Including the var. oxyptera, this plant is of frequent occurrence 
throughout the island, but the type and the variety graduate into 
each other. Fairly typical ew-vu/garis occasionally occurs, but the 
great bulk of the forms can scarcely be assigned with, confidence to 
either. Babington found var. oxyptera at Jerbourg and on Lancresse 
Common: it is generally distributed and plentiful on the cliffs, but 
not quite typical, the capsule being usually shorter, though broader, 
than the wings. The flowers vary in colour, being either deep blue, 
light blue, pink, purple, or (often) white. At Lerée Point I have 
gathered oxyf/era more nearly typical than elsewhere in the island. 
Métivier, in his Dictionnaire Franco-Normand, gives the Guernsey 
patois name for the Milkwort as Sguznancie, ‘parceque selon nos 
bonnes femmes, elle rend la parole & ceux qui sont affectés 
d’esquinancie, et aux paralytiques.’ Squinancy was the old word 
for quinsy, and the only plant known in England as Squinancy- 
wort is Asperula cynanchica, a species unknown in Guernsey, though 
found in Alderney and in Normandy, where it is called Aerde a 
Lesg ainancte. 
Polygala depressa, Wend. 
Native. First record: Marquand, 1891. 
‘This species occurs in different parts of the island, but I have 
not always been able to distinguish it clearly from forms of the 
preceding ; in fact, the plants belonging to this genus found here 
require more critical study than they have yet received. In a paper 
on the British species of Polygala in /ourn. Bot, 1877, p. 168, Mr. 
Alfred W. Bennett finds it ‘impossible to draw any sharp line 
between’ the varieties and sub-species of this genus. 
(Elatine hexandra is noted for Guernsey in Ansted’s Channel 
Islands. As this minute plant occurs in many places on the 
opposite French coast, it is quite possible that it will be found here 
if searched for; but at present there is no reliable evidence of its 
existence.) 
