SOME ADDITIONS TO TEIE DORSET FLORA. "7 



perfect seeds had to all appearance been formed ; and the fruit is 

 usually described as being much the same as that of P. luct/is (one 

 of the reputed parents). How the pollen is carried from one plant 

 to another has not been ascertained ; but if the whole genus is 

 correctly stated to be proterogynous, i.e., if the female organs are 

 developed before the male organs, the flowers would in no case be 

 self-fertilised ; and the wind would probably be the agent that 

 conveyed the pollen from flower-spike to flower^spike ; and there 

 would be no more difficulty on this score in the cross-fertilisation 

 of one species by another species than in the legitimate fertilisa= 

 tion of one species by its own pollen. The genus has received 

 much close attention in recent years, and one fact that has clearly 

 been established is that natural hybrids abound among the Poncl- 

 weeds. 



Perhaps the most interesting of the additions made to the 

 Dorset Flora during 1893 is the little sedge Cijperics fuscus, L., an 

 insignificant marsh plant, with nothing showy in the way of a 

 flower, but interesting on account of its extreme rarity in Groat 

 Britain. As it is distributed over the greatest part of the Conti- 

 nent of I^urope, being found from Portugal to middle and South 

 Russia, and from Denmark and r>elgium to the shores of the 

 Mediterranean and the Levant, it is rather remarkable that it 

 sliould be almost absent from a well-watered country with abun- 

 dance of suitable marshy places like the British Isles. For many 

 years only one single station has been known for it in these Isles, 

 a wet common in Surrey. There was a time when it also grew in 

 Chelsea, but there it was believed to be naturalised, and is now 

 extinct. So that the Shalford Common station was the only one 

 where there was any claim for the Cyperus to be considered 

 indigenous. Late in August last the Rev. W. R. I^inton detected 

 it, when out botanising with the Rev. R. P. Murray and myself, 

 near Ringwood ; there was no great quantity, and it appeared to be 

 confined to one small spot of ground. Having become familiar with 

 the look of the plant I naturally thought of it when I came across 

 some interesting marshy bits of land a few days later about Bere 



