202 Alexander Goodman More. [1868 



addition to the Flora of the Isle of Wight (that of Chara 

 alopecuroides) was made while searching the Newtown 

 salt-pans in August, 1862, when doubtless, as on previous 

 occasions, his eye was on the alert for signs of " the lost 

 Scirpus parvulus." Indeed, a month before he had been 

 in correspondence about it with a friend then visiting 

 Lymington.* 



It was therefore with a sense of real delight that, 

 towards evening on July 4th, 1868, after following the 

 Ovoca river to the sea, and reaching "the muddy shallows 

 which are overflowed at high water," he saw on these 

 something herbaceous growing " quite by itself, . . . giving 

 a pale green tint to their surface, and forming dense beds 

 of tiny green tufted stems, about an inch high, its slender 

 rhizomes interlaced and buried deeply in the mud"; and 

 knew at a glance that he had found Scirpus parvulus. His 

 diary record of that day's excursion is indeed a brief one : 

 " Ovoca and to Arklow Scirpus parvulus " is all it says. 

 But in later years, in chat with a botanical friend, he 

 would sometimes ask, " What plant did it give you the 

 greatest pleasure to find ? " And on the same question 

 being put in turn to himself, the answer, without hesita- 

 tion, was " Scirpus parvulus." 



Very curiously, within the next few years Scirpus 

 parvulus disappeared almost as completely from Mr. More's 

 locality as it had done from Mr. Smith's. It was sought 

 time after time, by himself as well as by other botanists 

 who had been to the spot and gathered it shortly after its 

 first discovery; but not a trace of "the lost Scirpus parvu- 

 lus " could be detected. At Lymington (Rev. Mr. Smith's 

 station) it has never been re-found; but in 1893 Mr. R. M. 

 Barrington discovered it growing once more plentifully at 

 Arklow. 



Another of his east coast expeditions is remarkable, as 

 having led him into an error of the very kind he most dis- 

 liked. On June i4th he visited Kiltennel sandhills, Co. 

 Wexford, for the purpose of seeing the Hippophae, or Sea- 

 Buckthorn, described by a correspondent as growing there 



* As appears from a letter in which the Rev. T. Salwey describes the reputed 

 locality, and refers to the fruitlessness of his search there, dated July I4th, 1862. 



