1886-87.] Three Rare Carnarvonshire Plants. 31 



I have never known in a single instance flowers to be pro- 

 duced. I have carefully removed plants from their native 

 haunts, with good balls of soil attached, and planted them in 

 as natural positions as my garden afforded, but although they 

 survived for several years (five in one instance), no flowers 

 were ever produced, and such was likewise the case with 

 several other experimenters of my acquaintance. 



Cotoncaster vulgaris (Lindley). — Less than a dozen years 

 ago this pretty shrub was fairly abundant on the cliffs of 

 the Great Orme's Head, its only British station ; but now, 

 alas ! its day is wellnigh past, for few specimens are to be 

 met with even in a hard day's " working " of that beautiful 

 headland. Growing from the crevices of the denuded lime- 

 stone cliffs, and in company with Upi^iactis ovalis, this little 

 shrub seems quite at home, and braves fearlessly both the 

 cold sweeping blasts and scorching sunshine, to which at 

 intervals the headland is fully exposed. 



Under cultivation, Cotoneaster frequently attains a height 

 of 5 feet, but here in its native wilds tortuous growing 

 plants, of rarely more than half a foot high, are most com- 

 monly met with, though in some sheltered sunny nook they 

 may attain a height of 12 inches. The fruit is reddish- 

 tinged, small, and rarely produced in quantity. 



Potamogcton Gh^iffithii (A. Benn.), discovered by Mr J. E. 

 Griffith, Bangor, in 1882, is an aquatic of particular interest, 

 as, save in one locality in North Wales, it is not known to 

 exist in a wild state. Llyn-on-Afon, or as it is better known 

 by the name of Aber Lake, in which the plant is found, is a 

 small tract of water in Mid-Carnarvonshire, at an elevation 

 of some 1250 feet. It is almost entirely hemmed in between 

 walls of rock, some of which rise so abruptly from the 

 water's edge that, on scanning the lake from their tops, large 

 irregular-sized patches of the Potamogeton may be distinctly 

 seen through the clear water. The discovery of the plant 

 is due to mere chance, for some fishermen, when following 

 their vocation, had drawn some of the plants ashore with 

 their lines, to which they had got entangled, and which 

 shortly afterwards were noticed by Mr Griffith, and at once 

 detected as a new species. 



The soil at the lake's bottom, and amongst which the 

 roots of this Potamogeton spread about freely, is composed of 



