479 



finding any of it left, as it was said to flower in June. However, I 

 did find some plants in seed, not exactly in the same spot, but within 

 a few yards of where he said he found it. It is, I am sorry to say, too 

 far gone for herbarium specimens, but in prime order for propagation; 

 and I enclose you a small portion of the seed, to sow in your garden. 

 It appears to me a very singular plant, for, if I am right in my con- 

 jecture, it produces seeds in two very different-formed vesicles, the 

 one a five-cleft regular calyx, the other a double-winged vesicle. — 

 George Reece. 



[I have submitted this note and the seeds to Mr. Watson, who has 

 kindly sent the following explanation, which I beg to hand to Mr. 

 Reece, through the pages of the ' Phytologist.' — £". A^.] 



If your correspondent can turn to page 268 of Babington's Ma- 

 nual, second edition, he will there see the genus Atriplex divided into 

 two sections; — one of them, "Monoecious; female flowers bipartite;'* 

 — the other, " Polygamous ; female flowers bipartite to the base, seed 

 vertical ; perfect flowers 3-5 parted, seed horizontal." The former 

 section includes all our native species ; excepting those removed to 

 ihe genus or sub-genus Halimus. The latter section includes only 

 Atriplex nitens, in the Manual, but would have also included A. 

 hortensis, if the author had considered it worth while to describe an 

 ordinary garden plant, on account of its occasional appearance on 

 rubbish-heaps and in waste ground, as a straggler from cultivation. I 

 have frequently seen stray plants of Atriplex hortensis by the road- 

 sides in north Surrey, just as I have seen stray plants of the garden 

 cress, celery, parsley, lettuce. Asparagus, &c. But I do not perceive 

 any value to science in the record of such accidental facts ; which 

 must be familiar enough to observant botanists, who are dwellers in 

 the country. In the case of a permanent habitat being made, or one 

 enduring for successive years, a record may be worth its ink and 

 paper. — H. C. Watson. 



Villarsia NymphcBoides. 



Those interested in the rapid extension of water-plants will be 

 pleased with the examination of an enormous plant of Villarsia which 

 is now choking up a comparatively recent basin of the Surrey Canal, 

 just by the gas-works on the Kent Road. It occurs abundantly in 

 many other parts of the same canal. — Edward Newman. 



