FLOWERING PLANTS. 129 
appended to a specimen in Gosselin’s. herbarium, stating that ‘a 
white form occurs sparingly.’ 
According to Métivier, the author of the D¢ctionnatre Franco- 
Normand, the patois name of this plant is Dés/émaie, a very obscure 
word, which, in his opinion, signifies stripped of leaves or flowers—a 
meaning altogether inapplicable to the plant. In Normandy it goes 
by the name of Petite Centaurée. In ancient times it was known as 
Fel terrae, or gall of the earth, owing to its intense bitterness. 
(Erythraea linarifolia, Pers , is noted in 47. Sarn. as having been 
found at the Vale, but it seems very probable that some form of one 
or other of the preceding species was mistaken for it. Babington 
also records Evrythraea latifolia, Sm., for Jersey, Guernsey, and 
Alderney, but it is not the plant now known to English botanists 
under that name. Hooker says the J/at/olia of Eng. Bot. is a 
stunted variety of Cen¢aurium, and in the Flora of Hampshire 
Mr. Townsend states: * Professor Babington many years ago dis- 
tributed specimens of 2. Centaurium, var. capitata, Koch., under 
the name of Z. /atifolia, Sm., and it is figured in Eng. Bot. Sup. 
under that name.’) 
Erythraea capitata, Willd. 
Native. First found: Mathews, 1876. 
Very rare. In the Journal of Botany, 1884, p. 91, this plant is 
recorded as having been found on Lancresse Common, in July, 
1876, by Mr. William Mathews. Like the Isle of Wight plant, it 
belongs to the var. sphaerocephala, Towns., the type not being found 
in this country. 
Cicendia filiformis, Reich. Slender Cicendia. 
Native. First record: Gosselin, 1815. 
Abundant all over Fort Doyle headland, and on several parts of 
Lancresse Common, the plants being usually small. Cobo Castle 
hill. Plentiful and very fine in one spot on the cliff-side in Saints 
Bay Valley. It is the Gentiana filiformis of Gosselin. 
Cicendia pusilla, Griseb. 
Native. First found: Wolsey, 1861 (?). 
Very rare. On the sandy common near Fort Doyle, which was 
supposed to be its only station until Miss B. Agnew discovered it, in 
1900, in considerable plenty in another locality towards Fort Le 
Marchant. It is a very minute plant, seldom more than an inch 
high, and flowers in August, though I have seen it as early as July 
16th. The Guernsey form is var. Candollei, Bast., the flowers being 
pink or pale purple, instead of yellowish-white, as in the type. I 
do not know who first discovered this little plant in Guernsey, but I 
possess two specimens labelled, in the hand-writing of the late H. C- 
K 
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