134 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PAST YEAR. 
Even fresh discoveries in English botany have not yet 
ceased; about a month ago, a plant was gathered in 
Herefordshire, which the lady who found it could not make 
out; she sent it to me, and I also was unable to reduce it 
to any known British genus; I therefore sent it to Mr. 
Watson, who pronounced it to be the Epipogium aphyllum, 
an orchideous plant, not uncommon in some parts of the 
Continent, but never before found in England. 
I mention this to stimulate the zeal of explorers, and to 
caution them against passing by, as mere monstrosities or 
varieties, plants which they cannot make out by such books 
as the Manual of Botany by Mr. Babington, which is the 
most complete record we have of British plants. 
It is not impossible that some may find a yet unrecorded 
plant, but, at the least, we should gain a complete list of 
the flora of our own county. In the lower tribes of plants, 
the conferv& and the fungi, there is an abundant harvest; 
and those who delight in mieroscopical investigations will 
find their labor amply repaid. The Peziza badia (Hook) 
grows at Stoke St. Mary, and the Polyporus lucidus has 
been found in the neighbourhood of Taunton. 
Allow me, in conclusion, to urge the importance of a 
suggestion, which has been made in the circular lately 
issued to the members, that specimens of all the different 
rocks and minerals of Somersetshire should be collected 
and labelled, and deposited in the Museum. The very 
extensive collection which the Society purchased of the 
late Rev. Mr. Williams is too excursive not to render a 
strietly Somersetshire series desirable and valuable. 
