Proceedings. 53 



advanced in a straight line, whirling leaves to a height of 

 sixty feet with a distinctly circular motion. At about eleven 

 o'clock in the evening of the same day Mr. Newman noticed 

 three great belts of light, like fine, thin cirrus, stretching in 

 parallel lines across a clear sky, their direction being from 

 the N.E., the same quarter from which the wind blew. The 

 moon was in one of the belts, and appeared as in a haze. No 

 change of weather followed, fine weather continuing for some 

 days. 



Mr. Albert J. Crosfield then read the following paper on 

 ' The Geographical Distribution of Wild Plants in the British 

 Isles ' * : — 



The late Mr. Hewett C. Watson, of Thames Ditton, the 

 father of British Topographical Botany, has divided the 

 whole species of British plants into six types of distribution, 

 at the same time placing a few species under none of the six 

 well-marked types, but referring some to a place intermediate 

 between types 3 and 4, and describing a number of our rarest 

 plants as "local species." Thus he dealt with our well- 

 established plants, numbering between 1400 and 1500 species ; 

 but, besides these, many are included in our botanical hand- 

 books which are colonists or aliens. The six types are : — 

 (1) British ; (2) EngUsh ; (3) Scottish ; (4) Highland ; (5) 

 Germanic ; (6) Atlantic ; and we will describe them in turn. 



1. Beitish. — 532 or about one-third of the plants making 

 up the British flora are spread through the length and breadth 

 of the land, though to some extent varying in abundance, in 

 accord with variations in soil, elevation, and aspect. Most of 

 these are spread over the whole Continent of Europe, and, 

 with six or seven exceptions, they are all found in Ireland. 

 That many plants are able to adapt themselves to very 

 different conditions no one will doubt who has seen Oxalis 

 Acetosella and Adoxa Moschatellina carpeting the shady woods 

 in Surrey, growing also on the summits of the Yorkshire 

 Fells, wherever a few yards of mountain limestone crop out 



* This imper has been revised with the aid of the 8th edition of the 

 'London Catalogue,' supplemented by information kindly furnished by 

 Mr. Arthur Bennett. 



