1028 



the Holt Forest; Mr. W. W. Reeves (in Ktt). At Fleet Pond, Mr. 

 H. Bull (in litt.). The apparent absence of this plant from a district 

 by no means deficient in heath and marshy ground is a remarkable 

 feature in the Isle of Wight flora; and I am still inclined to the 

 belief that it has been overlooked in the island, not really wanting 

 there. This species flowers with us from the very commencement of 

 May, or even at the close of April ; the books give June, &c. 



Scirpus paucijlorus. On wet or boggy heaths ; apparently rare in 

 the Isle of Wight and county generally. Plentiful on the upper part 

 of the heath at Colwell, Freshwater, towards Weston, July 6, 1840. 

 Bog on the right hand below the road about three miles from Ly- 

 mington towards Brockenhurst, June, 1849. Nutshaling (now called 

 Nursling), Townhill and Netley Commons; Mr. Winch, in New Bot. 

 Guide. 



Scirpus parvulus. In damp places, extremely rare. Discovered 

 about ten or twelve years ago, by the Rev. G. E. Smith, on a mud 

 flat near the baths at Lymington, but now seemingly extinct from 

 alterations. I have several times instituted a most careful search, as 

 has also Mr. Borrer, on the spot indicated to me by the discoverer, 

 which is on the gravelly flat betwixt the bath house and the river, but 

 I fancy the exact place where the plant grew is now occupied by a 

 rectangular reservoir for the supply of the baths, and not, as has been 

 stated, by a swimming bath, unless I have quite mistaken the direc- 

 tions given me, as that establishment, though contiguous, is separated 

 from the outer baths by an embankment and high palings, and could 

 not, I am confident, have been the station for the Scirpus, seeing that 

 it does not accord with the diagram of the locality furnished me by 

 Mr. Smith himself. There is still a considerable surface of undis- 

 turbed salt flats, close to the bath buildings, and as these from their 

 inconvenient distance from the town and participation in the general 

 decay of the borough (no longer the fashionable resort of the county 

 families for sea bathing it once was), hardly pay the cost of keeping 

 up, it is not probable that any further improvements or additions to 

 the baths will be made to trench on the remaining ground, still likely 

 to afford this rare little species on reiterated and persevering search. 

 Some logs of timber lay on the spot where the Scirpus grew, and 

 timber is still deposited on the same flat ground by the baths, which 

 might naturally create a suspicion of the plant's having been con- 

 veyed by the latter from abroad ; but what I have always seen lying 

 there looks more like oak timber from the neighbouring forest, judg- 

 ing by its small scantling and being almost in the rough, merely 



