32 BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. [January. 



BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 



Notice to Contributors. 



The Editor regrets that there have been' long in his possession several 

 communications which he could not publish for want of room. He parti- 

 cidarly refers to articles from Mr. Sim, Mr. A. Gr. More, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. 

 Beisly, Mr. Jerdon ; also from three other correspondents whose names 

 he is not at liberty to publish. There are also waiting for insertion 

 several extracts from the letters of correspondents whose missives, he ac- 

 knowledges, bear a not very recent date. He entreats all these kind 

 friends to have patience with him, and he will try and do his best to please 

 them all. 



Arenaria balearica. 

 (Extract from a Letter^ 



All I know about Arenaria balearica may be simply stated in a few 

 words. A young lad, gardener at Moncrieife House, brought, about the 

 beginning of June, 1859, a portion of a little plant which he said grew on 

 the north waU of their fruit-house, about two feet from the ground : there 

 was only one patch of it, about a foot in diameter. I sent a bit of it to 

 you, as I could not find any of our descriptions of the British Areyiarics 

 to agree with it. I thought it came nearest A. ciliata. At last I looked in 

 my Botanical dictionary, and found therein described, shortly and in- 

 sufficiently, a plant under the name of A. balearica, which I thought might 

 be the plant in question. I sent a bit of it to Mr. C. C. Babington, Cam- 

 bridge, who at once replied, confirming my opinion. On the 16th or 17th 

 of June last year, I went myself to Moncrieife, and on the tool or fruit 

 house saw the A. balearica and collected some of it myself. I never 

 intended to say whether this plant be indigenous to Scotland or not, I 

 only recorded a fact, waiving aU conjectures relative to the how or the 

 when of its appearance there. There it was, and probably there it will 

 continue to grow as long as the tool-house whereon it has settled itself 

 stands. Nature pleases herself in the selection of suitable localities for her 

 offspring. Botanical geographers would fain confine her within bounds, 

 but their laws, not hers, are like the spiders' webs which catch the weaker 

 denizens of the insect world and let the stronger break through. 



Some plants will submit to the laws made and provided for the restraint 

 of then- wandering propensities, but not aU. The plant in question, Are- 

 naria balearica, may be one of these, one of the vagrants of Flora's do- 

 minion ; unhappily she is not the only one that discomforts phytogeo- 

 graphers. John Sim. 



Communications have been received from 



Dr. Windsor; J. B. Wood, M.D., E.R.C.S.; Joseph Croucher ; Edwin 

 Green; R. Heward ; James Hussey; Hamet Beisly ; J. G. Baker; John 

 Sim; W. Wilson; T. W. Gissing; W. P. W. Richardson. 



