BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 119 
thus characterized, with all its parts considerably smaller than in the ordi- 
nary state, and with its flowers, instead of a deep violet, blue, resembling 
in_colour-those.of Lamium purpureum. In this plant also, the teeth of the 
calyx, though bearing, as in the form under which G. hederacea mostly 
shows itself in this country, a proportion of about one-third to the length 
of the tube, are broader and blunter in outline : so that it is probable that 
we should consider it as the miimum in the scale of a range of variations 
of a single species of which the maxima are represented by G. hetero- 
phyllum, Ofritz, and G. hirsuta of Waldstein and Kitaibel: for the dis- 
tinctions (which reside principally in the size and pubescence of their various 
parts, the shape and proportional length to the tube of the calyx-teeth), 
which have been relied upon by authors to separate these plants speci- 
fically, are clearly liable to a considerable degree of modification by the 
influence of differences in situation. In Turner and Dillwyn’s ‘ Botanist’s 
Guide,’ p. 495, I observe that a “var. flore carneo” of G. hederacea is 
mentioned as having been found by Dillenius, near Eynsham Abbey, in 
Oxfordshire ; but should suppose the usual change of blue flowers to red, 
of which, amongst British plants, Ajuga reptans, Prunella vulgaris, and 
Polygala vulgaris afford more familiar examples, to be an unusual occur- 
rence in this species. J. G. Baker, Thirsk. 
Is anything known of Mr. Jacob Rayer? It is to him that we are in- 
debted for the first discovery of several of our rarest Kent plants—Althaa 
hirsuta, Salvia pratensis, etc. Some particulars, of a name which comes 
before us so frequently in the early volumes of Sir J. E. Smith’s English 
Botany, would have a considerable degree of interest. The writer was in- 
duced to make the inquiry in consequence of having lately met with a 
letter of his, dated “Bolt Court, 1st July, 1795,” and addressed “ Mr. 
Wheeler,” in which Jacob Rayer laments his inability to accompany a bo- 
tanizing party “to Rydate and the bogs,” ete. etc. Quere, where is this 
Rydate ? A. W., Kennington. 
Will any of your correspondents favour the writer with their expe- 
rience as to the variations exhibited by the common White Water-lily, 
Nymphea alba? German writers have made a dozen bad species from 
trifling varieties of this widely-diffused plant; but in England, as far as 
the writer’s observations have gone, the plant is not subject to much va- 
riation. DEUIN: 
Is there anything known about Mr. George Bowles, the discoverer of 
several rare British plants,—for example, Lythrum hyssopifolium, near Dor- 
chester ; Impatiens Noli-me-tangere, in Wales ? J. A., Guildford. 
Misseltoe on the Oak.— Speaking to Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of vac- 
cination, on the Misseltoe of the Oak, and remarking that I had never 
seen that plant but on Apple-trees, and sometimes on the Hawthorn and 
Mountain-ash, he said he had seen one, and only one, on an Oak in the 
Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire. Dy. Jenner was, as is well known, an 
accurate observer and good naturalist. He considered its rarity and un- 
congenial habitat the cause of its being considered sacred by the Druids.” 
—Correspondent of Gardeners’ Chronicle. [We wish some obliging reader 
would tell us if he has seen the Misseltoe on the Oak. We would rather 
have the testimony of one eye-witness than many hearsays.] 
