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rect in all cases, it may tend to throw additional light on the causes 

 of plants being found in bloom at unusual periods. 



In the last week in September, I was searching in this neighbour- 

 hood for Ranunculus hirsutus, which T had not hitherto found. 

 On approaching a cultivated field at the back of Mortlake church, 

 1 observed that it was studded with the flowers of some species of 

 Ranunculus, and I began to congratulate myself on the discovery of the 

 plant I was searching for, but alas ! it was too premature ; it proved 

 to be no other than R. bulbosus. It was a useful observation, how- 

 ever, to me, and I think it may prove so to the readers of the ' Phy- 

 tologist,' whom it may induce to note similar observations, should 

 they present themselves. 



In a botanical excursion to Dorking on the 10th of October, I ob- 

 served the common honeysuckle, {Lonicera Periclymenum, L.) in 

 full bloom in many places. Thomas Meeham. 



Kew, November 10, 1846. 



On Fairy Rings. By J. Ford Davis, Esq. 



In writing to you about "Fairy Rings," it is not my intention to 

 enter fully upon the scientific view of the subject with WoUaston and 

 Way, or the more imaginative ones of your facetious correspondent 

 O. P. and the credulous and superstitious Aubrey. I propose to state 

 merely what has fallen under my own observation, during the course 

 of many years, in the lawn before my residence in this city. The 

 rings there are numerous, and so are the fungi, but I have never ob- 

 served more than one species, viz. Agaricus Orcades. White mentions 

 puff-balls, Wollaston A. Orcades, campestris, terreus, procerus, and 

 Lycoperdon bovista. Way mentions only one, A. graveolens, grow- 

 ing in those around the college at Cirencester. But what has struck 

 me as very remarkable, if not quite new (for I do not know that it has 

 been noticed by any writer), is that the colour of the grass in the 

 rings is not alone changed, but that the grasses themselves are 

 changed; for the finer lawn grasses, with Trifoliura repens, disappear 

 in those upon our Crescent lawn, and Cock's-foot {Dactylis glomerata) 

 takes their place. 



Mr. Way has afforded us a probable explanation of increased fer- 

 tility, but will that be sufficient to account for the substitution of a 

 solitary, coarse, and darker coloured grass for several others of a finer 

 and better quality ? It may indeed be questioned whether the term 



