1861.] BOTANICAL NOTES^ NOTICES^ AND QUERIES. 319 



will be a convenient herbarium for reference to all who study the native 

 plants of the British Isles. 



Note on Hypericum hirsutum. 

 (See ' Phytologist' for July, 1861, p. 203.) 



Last Wednesday, the 12th of June, 18G1, while we were walking 

 along the Fhicliley road which unites the Gi'eat North Koad by Barnet 

 with the north-west of London, and about a mile below Finchley. and 

 about as far from Golder's Green on the Hampstead road to Hendon, 

 there is a deep depression in the surface, with a smaU brook at its bottom, 

 on the side of which we saw several plants of Hi/pericum liirsutnin, not 

 then in flower. We went down from the road in hopes of seeing Mi/osurtis 

 minimns in a cornfield on the left-hand side of the road : cornfields are 

 rarities in this part of Middlesex. The Mousetail was invisible, but the 

 St. John's-wort was not ; and the Scirpus sylvaticiis was plentiful, and not 

 much shorter than two yards of good measiu-e. 



Botany of Mauritius. 

 {From the ' Gardeners' Chronicle,^ Jan. 1861.) 



1 will take the liberty of asking you, as you have adverted to the sub- 

 ject, to inform the piiblic that a Flora of IMauritius is in progress, and 

 that it will be completed with as much speed as is consistent with correct- 

 ness, and as my public duties will permit. I am quite certain that none 

 but a resident botanist can give good descriptions, for I find every now 

 and then considerable errors in l)e Candolle, Sprengel, and other books, 

 arising from the descriptions having been drawn up froiu dried specimens. 

 The Cryptogamous Flora below the Ferns is almost uninvaded by former 

 botanists, and will aftbrd to me a very rich liarvest in my favourite division 

 of the Vegetable Kingdom, of which 1 know most of the British species. 

 The Fungi are interesting from their similarity to those of England. I 

 have found numbers of my old friends. The climate is delicious ; the 

 winter about the temperature of June, and in the sunnner the thermome- 

 ter in the shade rarely rises above 87° Fahr., so that an Englishman with 

 an Englishman's energy can readily go about throughout the entire year, 

 and, as malaria is absolutely unknown, without danger. The fears I have 

 seen expressed that the native Flora of Mauritius will be extirpated by the 

 progress of cultivation is absurd. A few localities may be lost, but from 

 the mountainous character of a considerable part of the island, it is inca- 

 pable of cultivation, and the majority of tlie species will always be pre- 

 served. Neither do I fear that the island will become barren by destruc- 

 tion of the forests, as it is the mountain-tops that break the clouds, and 

 the rainfall remains the same ; but should the forests be destroyed to a 

 large extent, it will then be necessary to have recourse to the storage of 

 water in tanks, which would be readily made by damming the ravines, the 

 sides of the ravines forming three sides of each reservoir, and these sides 

 are often 150 to 200 feet high, and of solid basaltic rock. — -Ph. B. xIyres. 



Worcestershire Naturalists' Club. 



The July meeting of this Club was held on Wednesday last, upon the 

 breezy platform of Bredon Hill, but the recent precarious weather acted 

 as a damper upon the ardent volunteers- who lately showed such zeal in 



