I860,] THIRSK NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 57 



worth aliens, lias been met with on rnbbish-heaps at Pendleton, 

 near Manchester, bj^ Mr. Richard Buxton, the author of the 

 Flora. Dr. Windsor has forwarded a specimen. 



" Brosera anglica is sent by Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith from Wool- 

 ston Moss, near Warrington. It is not given as a plant of the 

 Mersey province in the fourth volume of the ' Cybele,' probably 

 by oversight, as it is acknowledged as such in vol. i. 



" Spergularia rupicola, Lebel. Of the plant given under the 

 name of Spergularia rupestris in the fifth edition of the London 

 Catalogue, Mr. J. T. Syme sends an example from Guernsey, and 

 writes respecting it to the effect that Dr. Lebel described it un- 

 der that name in 1848, in his ' E-echerches et Observations sur 

 quelques Plantes nouvelles, rares ou peu connues de la Presqu'ile 

 de la Manche,^ but that as there is already a Spergularia- rupes- 

 tris of Cambaceres, which is not the same, he now calls it S. ru- 

 picola, Lebel. It is common in Guernsey, where it has been 

 observed also by M. Le Jolis, of Cherbourg. More recently Mr. 

 A. G. More has detected it on chalk cliffs in Scratchell's Bay and 

 on ledges behind the village of Niton, in the Isle of Wight. In 

 habit of growth, >S^. rupicola most resembles marina (i.e. margi- 

 nata, DC). The root is strong and thick, the stems are tufted, 

 the flower-heads are larger, and the panicle is more separated 

 from the leaves, and more regularly racemose than in media, but 

 the capsule scarcely exceeds the calyx, whilst in marina it is half 

 as long again. The seeds are invariably ivingless, in size inter- 

 mediate between those of 7'ubra and the wingless seeds of media, 

 when mature nearly black in colour, obovate-pyriform in shape, 

 neither so flat as in media nor so distinctly triquetrous as in rubra, 

 witTi a rough, raised border, which runs round about two-thirds 

 of their circumference ; so that in the seeds the range of grada- 

 tion of the four supposed species is as follows, viz. rubra, rupi- 

 cola, media, marina. In all probability, if our members will 

 examine their collections, rupicola will be found to grow upon 

 coast cliffs in other parts of Britain proper besides in the Isle of 

 Wight. By the late Mr. S. Gibson (' Phytologist,' Old Series, 

 vol. i. p. 218) an 'Arenaria marina, /3 hirsuta,^ is mentioned as 

 growing on Newlyn Cliffs, near Penzance, and ' Phytologist,^ 

 o. s., vol. iii. p. 332, Mr. F. J. A. Hort enumerates several sta- 

 tions for a plant which it is not unlikely may be the same as 

 that of which I am now speaking. Of this last I believe that 



N. S. VOL. IV. I 



