278 Alexander Goodman More. [i879 



one sense the Cambridgeshire discovery only added to the 

 perplexity with which the plant was regarded, since there, 

 as in the Welsh brook, the most anxious search, during 

 the summer of 1880, led to no detection of anything like 

 ripe fruit. 



The visit to the little stream in which a plant so seldom 

 seen by botanical eyes grew and flowered profusely was 

 a real treat. But, as is told by Mr. Babington, who sent 

 an account of the excursion to the Journal of Botany, the 

 search for seed proved vain. They consoled themselves 

 by hoping that they were too early in the season, and that 

 Mr. Griffith, in another month's time, would be more 

 successful. 



The day which followed that devoted to Potamogeton 

 lanceolatus was occupied in looking up another rarity, the 

 party betaking themselves to the Great Orme's Head, the 

 only British station for Cotoneaster vulgaris. Here too 

 they had to be prepared for " absence of fruit," but un- 

 happily no mystery in this instance attached to the 

 phenomenon. The Cotoneaster was itself gradually dis- 

 appearing. Mr. More had previously visited the Head in 

 August, 1865, and had gathered five shoots for his Her- 

 barium less vigorous by far than those which, twelve 

 years earlier, had come to him in exchange parcels, but 

 hale and lusty in comparison with the best which were 

 now to be seen. Three leaves separately picked off, 

 without any stem, and carefully gummed down on the 

 sheet of paper, accompany the inscription in his Herbarium, 

 " With C. C. B. Scarcely a leaf left. Sept. i, 1880." 



The dying out of such a rarity is to be deplored by 

 everyone, but in his case the regret was special, for this 

 was a plant which, even before he saw it growing, had 

 possessed a marked fascination for him partly from the 

 difficulty of accounting for its presence in an isolated spot 

 like the Orme's Head, so remote from its native Scandi- 

 navian home. There is mention made of it in his Journal 

 for November i5th, 1854, that tells how, travelling by rail 

 from Carnarvon to Chester, " I also observed the ledges of 

 limestone strata on the Orme's Head, and conjectured 

 where the Cotoneaster might grow " ; whilst his review 



