BOTANY 



In addition there are a few alien species which I have not been 

 able to verify, although they are probably correctly identified, namely 

 Anemone apennina, Isatis the woad was formerly cultivated about Want- 

 age ; Silene conica, which I have seen as a casual in Oxfordshire at 

 Goring ; S. quinquevulnera, Pyrus germanlca the medlar occurs in a wild 

 state in the Oxfordshire hedges, but very rarely ; Doronicum plantagineum 

 and Polemonium were garden escapes ; Chenopodium Botrys, a mere casual ; 

 and Aristolochia Clematitis the Oxfordshire locality at Godstow is just 

 on the Berkshire border, and the Reading locality has apparently been 

 lost. 



Among the native species which have become so scarce as to elude 

 my observations are Lythrum Hysoppifolia ; Tordylium maximum ; Crepis 

 fcetida, if indeed this was not mistaken for C. taraxacifolia ; Damasonium 

 Alisma, which is a decreasing species in the Thames province ; Dryopteris 

 Thelypteris^ which may possibly be refound ; and the two club-mosses, 

 Lycopodium clavatum and Selago) are likely to still occur in some portion 

 of the Kennet or Loddon districts. Two plants, Tordylium maximum, 

 which formerly certainly grew near Windsor but probably on the 

 Buckinghamshire side of the Thames only, and is not now to be found 

 there or in its Berkshire locality near Frilford, and the monkey orchid 

 (Orchis Simia) may be put in the category of extinct species, and it is 

 most sincerely to be hoped that the list of extinctions will not be 

 enlarged in the immediate future. 



A few statistics on the comparative distribution of the Berkshire 

 plants in Great Britain may not be unwelcome. 



Mr. H. C. Watson in the first edition of Topographical Botany (ii. 

 665-710) gives a comitial census of British plants which shows in a 

 tabular form their comparative distribution. It must be borne in mind 

 that the census numbers there given are now much too small, as many 

 additions have been made since the publication of that work. It must 

 also not be overlooked that these census numbers, while useful to show 

 the distribution of a species through Britain, give no idea of the relative 

 frequency of the species ; but adopting the list of species there given, 

 with the specific limitations as made by Mr. Watson, we find that 



Of the 368 species, which in that work are stated to be found in 

 from 80 to 110 counties and vice-counties of Great Britain, all occur in 

 Berkshire. Of the 127 species found in from 70 to 80 counties and 

 vice-counties, two inland species, Sparganium natans and Eriophorum 

 vaginatum, are not actually known to grow in Berkshire, but Dr. Eyre de 

 Crespigny in the London Flora has stated that the latter occurs at 

 Sunningwell, and a renewed search may possibly put its occurrence in our 

 county beyond doubt. 



Of the 1 17 species recorded as occurring in from 60 to 70 counties, 

 Berkshire has 108, the four missing inland species being Empetrum 

 nigrum, Cystopteris fragilis, Polypodium Dryopteris (Phegopteris Dryopteris) 

 (which occurs in woods on the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Chil- 

 terns, may yet be found), and Cbrysosplenium alternifolium. The five 

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