BOTANY 



enumerates about 380 plants seen growing in the neighbourhood of Great Marlow. This 

 indeed forms the basis of the county flora, but it must be borne in mind that a considerable 

 number are from Berkshire localities. Shortly afterwards Dr. Ayres of Thame issued 

 Exsiccati of plants found growing in the neighbourhood of Thame in north Buckingham- 

 shire, and in these Oxfordshire localities are also represented. Notes on the flora of 

 the neighbourhood of Stoke Poges were contributed to the Phytologht by Mr. (now 

 Sir) W. Thiselton Dyer; Messrs. W. Pamplin, C. J. Ashfield and S. Beisley also 

 added some county references in the same journal. Buckinghamshire specimens collected by 

 Edward Forster, jun., Mrs. Robinson, Mr. T. Cox, J. Forbes Young and Samuel Rudge 

 are in the British Museum herbarium, and others obtained by Mr. W. Wilson Saunders 

 and by Mrs. Lightfoot of Wootton in Northamptonshire are in the Fielding herbarium 

 at Oxford. Elizabeth Chandler of High Wycombe prepared a herbarium about 1864-5 of 

 plants from that vicinity, which is now in the British Museum, and it filled up many gaps 

 in the records of common species ; and she also published notes in the Botanical Chronicle 

 for 1864. In the pages of The Quarterly Magazine of the High Wycombe Natural History 

 Society Mr. James Britten contributed the result of such records as had been already made 

 by other writers, as well as his own discoveries. 



MYCETOZOA ' 



Of the numerous organisms that form connecting links between 

 the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, those that are known as 

 Mycetozoa 2 are remarkable alike for their variety and beauty, and also 

 for the strange metamorphoses through which they pass, in completing 

 their life cycle. It has been customary in scientific classification to 

 place the Mycetozoa with the Fungi, but as the former differ from 

 the latter in several essential features, particularly in the power of loco- 

 motion which they exhibit in certain stages of their existence, it has 

 been proposed by a German systematist to rank them as a separate 

 kingdom. 



The investigations that have been carried on in Buckinghamshire, 

 although over a somewhat limited area, are sufficient to show that the 

 county is rich in these organisms. In this respect it agrees with the 

 adjoining counties of Herts and Beds, the district under consideration 

 containing either an unusual abundance of Mycetozoa, or else that the 

 neighbourhood has been carefully searched for them. Taking the three 

 counties just mentioned, there have been recorded ninety-nine species 

 out of the one hundred and forty catalogued for Great Britain, the 

 number of species for the whole world being two hundred and two. 



Nearly all the Bucks records are founded on gatherings made in 

 the eastern portion of the county, chiefly in the parishes of Dagnall, 

 Ivinghoe and Little Brickhill. The most prolific locality is Ward's 

 Coombe Wood, where the conditions are particularly favourable to the 

 growth of these organisms. The wood has a northerly aspect, is cool 

 and moist, and the trees are allowed to grow naturally. Those that fall, 

 through age or by storms, are left to gradual decay, and these, especially 

 the beeches, when in an advanced stage of disintegration, sustain great 

 numbers of the Mycetozoa, often several genera being present on one 



1 By James Saunders, A.L.S., Luton. 



1 Myxomycetes or Myxogastres of some authors. 



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