some Recent Additions to the Flora of Surrey. 41 



The first plant to which I would draw attention is the common 

 lady's mantle, AlchemiUa vuh/aris. Though said to occur near 

 Eeigate, Dorking, and elsewhere, I have never been able to find 

 it, nor has Mr. Crosfield, of Eeigate ; and no Surrey specimens 

 seem to exist in herbaria or to have been seen by any botanist with 

 whom I am acquainted. I was therefore very glad to receive a 

 specimen last summer from Mr. Thomas Howse, who gathered 

 it in a wood near Horsley, where it was first noticed by the Rev. 

 George Sawyer. 



One of our rarest plants, not only from a county point of view, 

 but having regard to the whole of Britain, is the slender cotton- 

 grass, L'riophonm (/racile. Formerly known only in this country 

 as a native of Yorkshire and Surrey, and occurring but in a 

 single locality in each county, it has long been extinct in both. 

 A few years since it was discovered in Hampshire, and last June 

 I had the good fortune to meet with it in some abundance in a 

 Siihafi7i7(m bog near Aldershot. Unlike our other species of 

 cotton-grass, the present one does not grow actually on the peat, but 

 apparently entirely among the Sphaiimim and roots of bog-plants, 

 at a distance of several feet above the soil. This peculiarity in 

 its habit fully accounts for its disappearance on the approach of 

 drainage. The others are not infi-equently seen on almost dry 

 peat ; but this is never the case with gracile, which is only to be 

 found in the very wettest parts of the bog. 



Among varieties new to Surrey I may mention a mint which 

 is supposed to be very rare, and indeed no locality was known 

 for it until it was re-discovered in Norfolk a short time ago. It 

 is the Mentha hircina, and Mr. Baker considers it to be exactly 

 the plant of Hull. It is usually placed as a variety of Mentha 

 pubescens, but it so much more nearly resembles the common 

 peppermint, Mentha piperita, under which species I should have 

 placed it, that it seems more than j)robable that its supposed 

 rarity is due to its having been passed over as the latter plant.* 

 It occurs in three stations in Surrey, — in a ditch at Daw's Green, 

 near Keigate ; near Holmwood Station ; and near Chiddingfold, 

 — and is a doubtful native in all of these localities. 



A good deal of misunderstanding has existed as to the different 

 forms of Epipactis found in this country. This I believe to be 

 partly due to want of opportunity to compare the different plants 

 in the fresh state, herbarium specimens being mostly quite 

 useless for this purpose. Though some attention was paid to 

 these plants last year, I was unable to come to any satisfactory 

 conclusion as to our Surrey forms, owing to the absence of 



* Since reading this paper I have had an opportunity of examining a 

 specimen of M. pipci-ita-s!ili'e>!tri«, Sole (31. hircina, Hull), and cannot refer 

 the Surrey plant to that form. 



