1029 



barked and slightly trimmed, not squared or sided, as it would be, I 

 apprehend, coming from a foreign port.* I have set the bath-keeper, 

 an intelligent and obliging person, to look out for the Scirpus, but do 

 not hope for much assistance in its re-discovery from one ignorant of 

 botany, and therefore wanting both in zeal and experience for the de- 

 tection of a plant scarcely exceeding an inch in height. I have seen 

 specimens in the herbariums of Mr. Smith and Mr. Borrer, and others, 

 deposited by my reverend and esteemed friend, in that of the Chi- 

 chester Philosophical Institution, but possess none of my own. I 

 cannot doubt but that S. parvulus is truly indigenous in this, its only 

 recorded British station, since it inhabits the south and middle of 

 Europe, as far north as Denmark (by the Elbe in Holstein), but 

 would seem to be extremely local and uncommon on the continent as 

 with us. There is an excellent figure of it in ' Flora Danica,' vol. xiii. 

 t. 2161. 



Scirpus fluitans. In ditches, drains, pools, and watery pits, either 

 floating in the water or constituting a dense and spongy but trea- 

 cherous turf around the shallow margins of the two latter. In several 

 parts of the Isle of Wight. Marsh ditches at the upper or north-west 

 end of Blackpan Common, in great plenty, and in watery gravel pits 

 on Bordwood Heath. In clay pits on heathy ground near the western 

 arm of the Newtown river. All along the little ditch or drain bound- 

 ing the fir plantation by Winford farm, rooting in soft mud. I have 

 at present only the undermentioned mainland station to give for this 

 Scirpus, which I cannot suppose to be really rare in the county, 

 although it happens not to have fallen under my notice since I began 

 to investigate that, the more extensive portion of Hampshire. South 

 end of Miller's Pond,f Mr. W. L. Notcutt, in a list of the Rarer 

 Plants near Southampton, in Phytol. i. p. 328. + 



Scirpus setaceus. In damp sandy or gravelly places, on wet ditch 

 banks, in low meadows, drains, and turfy bogs, &c, but by no means 

 a frequent plant, at least in the Isle of Wight, where, and along the 

 coast opposite, its place is chiefly supplied by the next species. In a 



* The peculation so long carried on with impunity in the New Forest, through 

 the supineness and maladministration of the forest officers, and recently brought be- 

 fore the public in judicial and parliamentary inquiries, must materially have helped 

 to stock -the builders' and shipwrights' yards of West Hants, with oak timber at an 

 easy rate. 



f Marked Weston Pond in the Ordnance Map. 



| Since this was written I have found S. fluitans near Christchurch, in the New 

 Forest, and elsewhere on the mainland ; no uncommon species across the water. 



