^8 Mr. J. Hogg on the Ballast-Flora of 



of fecundation in the Floridese differ widely from those hitherto 

 known to occur in the Algae. The structure of the organs, their 

 mode of action, the period at which their functions are performed, 

 and the effects which they produce present important differ- 

 ences related to those which distinguish the Floridese from the 

 other Hydrophytes. We no longer find in this case a direct 

 action of the antherozoids upon the reproductive bodies : the 

 operation is less simple, and in some respects presents some 

 resemblance to that occurring in the higher plants ; for we see 

 in the same way a fecundation produced by immobile corpuscles 

 upon an external organ, and having as its result the determination 

 of a complete development of the apparatus of fructification. 



IX. — On the Ballast-Flora of the Coasts of Durham and North- 

 umberland. By John Hogg, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S. &c* 



In this short paper I beg to offer to botanists a few remarks on 

 the plants which have been introduced with ballast by ships on 

 the coasts of Durham and Northumberland, 



This interesting subject has already received some attention 

 from our practical and field-working botanists, namely the late 

 Mr. Winch, the late Mr. Storey, the Kev. A. M. Norman, and 

 Mr. M.A. Lawson, who have all published, in the 'Transactions 

 of the Natural- History Society of Newcastle-on-Tyne,^ and in 

 those of the Naturalists^ Field-Club, some lists of the rare plants 

 which they found growing on the ballast-hills in their own vi- 

 cinity. I have been able, from an acquaintance of some years 

 with the ballast-districts of the county of Durham, to add several 

 rarer species to those lists which were formed by the botanists 

 whom I have already mentioned. 



The extent of the two counties to which I have now limited 

 myself comprises the sea-coasts and chiefiy the banks of the 

 rivers Tees, Wear, and Tyne : of the latter are the great ballast- 

 deposits at Port Clarence and those at West Hartlepool, at East 

 Hartlepool, and the embankment of the railway to the north of 

 the latter town, the mounds of ballast at Seaham, at Sunder- 

 land, and near Wearmouth, as well as those at South and North 

 Shields, and others along the Tyne nearer to Newcastle. 



In the following lists of species I shall only divide them into 

 two heads or divisions, viz., the first, those plants which are 

 exotics or foreign to our island, and, the second, those more 

 scarce indigenous and naturalized plants of Great Britain which 

 were rarely seen, if not entirely unknown, in the before-named 

 portions of England. 



* Communicated by the Author, having been read before the Section 

 Biology at the British Association Meetings held at Nottingham, August 

 28. 1866. 



