1079 



a bog at the source of the Yar ; Freshwater Gate, Isle of Wight." 

 (With. Arr. 3rd edit. ii. p. 120). I know not what this can be, but 

 suspect it is only the following species. A. fulvus will probably be 

 some day discovered in this county, but as distinct from the present 

 I have great misgivings. 



Alopecurus bulbosus. In salt-marsh meadows, also in dry pastures 

 and waste ground near the sea, in several parts of the Isle of Wight. 

 On Ryde Dover in great plenty not many years ago, but I doubt if it 

 exists there now, that piece of ground being nearly built over, and 

 the small part still left unoccupied by houses levelled and trodden 

 down into a bed of loose sand, and traversed by roads and embank- 

 ments.* It may, however, be found in the marsh meadows at the rear 

 of the Dover, between it and the gas-works. Salt marshes between 

 Bembridge and Brading, near the sluice, &c, abundantly. Between 

 Yarmouth and Thorley, by the road-side near the bridge. Marshy 

 spot by the road-side between Brading and Sandown, Aug. 1848, Mr. 

 Borrer. On the lawn of Lord Spencer's house, Ryde, Dr. T. Bell Sal- 

 ter. I have no station to give for this species on the mainland of the 

 county, but cannot doubt its existence there, believing, as I do, that 

 A. bulbosus is of very common occurrence in most of our salt or 

 brackish pastures in the island, but not distinguishable with the cer- 

 tainty required for botanical indication from A. geniculatus, without 

 examination of the glumes in every instance. In our standard floras 

 and hand-books the culms are described as erect ; they may be so in 

 many instances, but here at least I have always found them'as Lloyd 

 remarks them in Brittany, decumbent and geniculate. The plant is, 

 in fact, with us perfectly depressed, forming tufts of a circular outline, 

 and looking as if trodden flat, the root emitting numerous leafy culms, 

 spreading in all directions, w T ith bulb-shaped bases, the lower joints 

 geniculate, and the part of the culm above these porrected horizontally 

 to the very termination of the spike ; never erect, but sometimes a lit- 

 tle ascending. There is, indeed, nothing in the aspect, colour or mode 



* The existence of most of the interesting plants inhabiting the Dover at Ryde has 

 become, within these four or five years, matter of history merely. I believe all or 

 nearly the whole of the under-mentioned species are extinct or lingering their last on 

 that once fertile spot to the botanist: — Trifolium striatum, scabrum, glomeratuin, suf- 

 focatura, ornithopodioides, subterraneum (this last, and possibly a few specimens of 

 the others, still survives on the little remaining turf), Mercurialis annua, Onopordon 

 Acanthium, Gastridium lendigerum, Dianthus prolifer (now greatly circumscribed in 

 space), Festuca uniglumis ? Armoracia rusticana (Cochl. Armor.), Alopecurus bulbo- 

 sus, and Datura Stramonium. 



