1859.] EXTRACTS FKOM CO'.tREf PONDENCE. 107 



doubt as to its being such, and on searching for the inflorescence, 

 I could find nothing but male flowers ; this led me to suspect, 

 with the difference in the form of the leaf, that it was H. chry- 

 sophyllum, a dioicous species, and as the plants were all barren 

 or males, there was necessarily no fruit. In another instance I 

 received from a very valued friend a specimen named H. poly- 

 morphum, which on examination proved to be H. chrysophyllum. 

 This was evidently an inadvertence or oversight, for if it had been 

 carefully investigated, the presence of the nerve would have at 

 once decided that it could not well be that species, which is 

 nerveless ; this character, with the dioicous inflorescence, would 

 also have prevented its being mistaken for H. polygamum, the 

 only other species, perhaps, with which it could be confounded, 

 though I possess H. stellatum so named. These things should 

 teach us all a useful lesson in pursuing practically the study of 

 these most interesting and delightful plants, and forcibly illus- 

 trates the necessity of taking nothing for granted, or trusting to 

 the general appearance they may present from their more obvious 

 characters ; the satisfaction and pleasure thus obtained is at all 

 times most pleasing ; moreover the peculiar characters of each in- 

 dividual are far more permanently fixed upon the mind, and not 

 readily effaced from the memory. The facility it also gives in 

 the recognition of species is of no mean value, and in my opinion 

 amply requites us for all the time, labour, and trouble expended 

 in their study, besides acquiring an amount of real practical 

 knowledge, to be obtained by no other mode with which I am 

 acquainted, 



Breidden Hill. 



' The following sketch of this famous botanical station is ex- 

 tracted from a report of last year's excursions, read at the annual 

 meeting of the Oswestry and Welshpool Naturalists' Field Club 

 and Archseological Society, by the Secretary, the Kev. W. W. 

 How. (We are not at all sure that the Veronica mentioned 

 below should not be hybrida instead of spicata.) 



" To the botanist the Breidden is an unrivalled mine of wealth. 

 As he scrambles up the almost precipitous face of thd Black Rock, 

 above the little over-shadowed village of Criggion, he finds his 

 feet pillowed in a cushion of Saxifrage, or crushing an exquisite 



