154 



LOCALITIES. 



England. \ 



Scotland l'^" ^^ lakes of all our mountain districts. 



Ireland, j 



The Quillwort, thougli confined to our mountain lakes, is an abun- 

 dant plant in such situations, clothing the bottoms of the deep and 

 still waters with a perennial verdure, and supposed by the casual tour- 

 ist to be a submerged grass. In the North of England it occurs 

 abundantly; and I am indebted to Miss Beever, of Coniston, for an 

 abundant supply of living specimens from that neighbourhood : had 

 it not been for that lady's kind and timely assistance, I should have 

 been unable to draw up a satisfactory description of this curious plant; 

 since in dried specimens many interesting characters are lost. In 

 Ireland and Scotland I observed it more or less abundantly in every 

 lake I had an opportunity of searching. 



In Caeman^onshire I have found it in more than a dozen of the 

 little lakes which abound in the Snowdon range, and this appears to 

 have been one of the earliest recorded habitats. It was found in Og- 

 wen, Lyn-y-Cwn, and the Lakes of Llanberis, by Llhwyd, Ray, Rich- 

 ardson and Dillenius, the latter of whom waded into the waters of 

 Llanberis purposely to find it. The imagination of a botanist delights 

 to picture the Sherardian professor in this interesting situation ; his 

 shoes, with their enormous silver buckles, and his grey-ribbed hose, 

 are seen reposing on the strand ; his important bag wig and his for- 

 midable military hat, sharply looped on three several sides, adorn his 

 learned head ; the ample skirts of his coat are gathered on one arm, 

 whilst the other hand grasps a gold-headed cane, wherewith to uproot 

 the brittle Calamaria. I will quote the entire passage in which this 

 adventure is recorded ; the mention of uncomfortable lodgings will be 

 amusing to those modem botanists who have feasted in the palace-like 

 hotel, now standing almost on the site of the philosopher's pathetic 

 lamentation. " I found the common Suhularia folio rigido, mention- 

 ed to grow only in Phynon Vreech, and the Juncifolia coclilearics 

 capsidis* pretty plentifully, which relieved me very much of our dis- 

 appointment of not seeing more Glyder plants. In the lake near 

 Llanberis, a little further on, where you found the Suhularia fragilis, 

 folio longiore et tenuiore, cast out of the lake, I pulled oif my shoes 

 and stockings, and found it growing there in great plenty. If any 



* " Subularia aquatica," [.S'm.] 



