THE 
JOURNAL OF BOTANY, 
BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 
ON BRITISH SPECIES OF ISOETES.* 
By Cnanrzs C. Basineroy, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., 
Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge. 
(Prate I.) 
UNTIL very recently no person had any idea that we possessed in 
England more than one species of Isoëtes; indeed, the time is not far 
distant when no botanist suspected that more than one species existed 
in Europe, or even in the whole world. We find Messrs. Hooker and 
Arnott, in the eighth edition of their ‘ British Flora’ (published in 
1860), saying that “there is probably only one species of the genus.” 
Not having materials at hand, I am unable to state how many species 
are really to be found in Europe; and we shall probably not be accu- 
rately informed on that subject until M. Durieu de Maisonneuve pub- 
lishes the monograph which has been so long expected. I possess the 
following European species in my herbarium :—(1) J. lacustris, L., (2) T. 
echinospora, Dur., (3) I. tenuissima, Bor., (4) I. adspersa, A. Br., (5) I.seta- 
cea, Del., (6) I.velata, Bory, (7) I. Hystriz, Dur., and (8) I, Duriai, Bory. 
For specimens of some of these I am indebted to M. Durieu, and for others 
to my esteemed friend M. J. Gay, of Paris. In the ‘British Flora’ (1862), e:^* 
Sir W. J. Hooker, although obliged to allow that at least two species 
exist, viz. a plant with its rhizome more or less covered by the per- 
* An able contribution towards the natural history of IJsoétes has been — 
by Dr. Alexander Braun, Professor of Bota auy at Berlin, in the thi d fourth 
numbers of the Transactions of the ge Society of the Province of Brandenburg 
and the aaye Districts | 1862, 8vo), from which we may be tem tempted to 
give extracts o —Ep. 
VOL. I. B 
