619 



Mr. Bowman, it was gathered wild something less than two miles from 

 Halifax, and is certainly G. pyrenaicum. The specimen I now 

 enclose is the same as the one I sent to Mr. Bowman ; and if that 

 gentleman sent Mr. Watson some other, I know nothing of it. The 

 specimen sent will serve to show how far I am correct in the name. 

 After what has been said on this subject, it will be clearly seen that 

 there is some mistake concerning this Geranium, but the question is, 

 who is to bear the blame ? Whoever may have made the mistake, I 

 think Mr. Watson did wrong in publishing it, since he received the 

 specimen under the name of G. pyrenaicum, and published it under 

 that of G. nodosum in the first part of the New Guide, p. 278. In the 

 second part, at p. 652, he says, " but I entertain scarcely any doubt 

 as to the species ; " and in ' The Phytologist,' p. 589, he says, " I 

 THINK it G. nodosum." By this it will be seen that Mr. Watson does 

 not know the plant, neither can he read the label, and therefore I 

 think he ought not to have published it. — Id. 



[It is evident that there is some mistake connected with the specimen of Geranium 

 nodosum in Mr. Watson's possession, which it will now be difficult, if not impossible, 

 to clear up. The specimen accompanying the above communication, is decidedly one 

 of G. pyrenaicum ; and it is labelled — " Geranium pyrenaicum. Washer-lane, near 

 Halifax, 1 830."— £"</.] 



317. Note on the Viviparous Grasses. I am glad to see the sub- 

 ject of viviparous grasses taken up by Mr. Grindon (Phytol. 584), and 

 will now give him the result of my observations on the Festuca vivipara 

 of Smith. I have often been told that at a certain height upon our 

 Yorkshire hills Festuca ovina is changed into the F. vivipara of Smith ; 

 and that Smith's F. vivipara is only a variety of F. ovina: this change, 

 I was told, is effected by the damp atmosphere causing the seeds to 

 germinate in the husk, before they fall to the ground. It had long 

 puzzled me to know how it happened that the grass did not return to 

 its natural form when growing at a lower elevation, as I have seen it 

 cultivated in a garden for more than twenty years, and still retain its 

 usual character — that of producing young plants instead of seeds. In 

 June, 1842, I visited one of these hills (Fountains Fell) for the pur- 

 pose of examining this grass ; but on arriving at the place I did not 

 find all the F. ovina changed into vivipara, but, on the contrary, there 

 was an abundance of both, each retaining its usual character. Here 

 I was under a second embarrassment, how to account for all this ; 

 however, I set to work, and got a number of specimens of F. vivipara 

 and examined them, but not a single perfect flower was to be found : 

 not one of those I examined had even the inner glume of the corolla, 



