242 ANEMONE PULSATILLA. \_October, 



croaking, and screaming give an additional wildness to the scene. 

 Dreadful accidents are by no means uncommon. The mother of 

 my guide recollects eight persons losing their lives by falling from 

 the tops or sides of the cliffs : they were principally boys, who 

 came a bird-nesting. Having made what discoveries and having 

 gleaned all the information which I could, and it being near 

 night, I returned to the inn. 



At four o^ clock next morning I started on my road to Bristol, 

 intending to walk on till a passenger-van which leaves Cheddar 

 at six overtook me. I remarked that the Ferns which I saw 

 growing so plentifully in all other places, were scarce all along 

 this road. It is the high-road from North Devon to Bristol, and 

 I suppose that the fern-collectors on their return have grubbed 

 them ali up. I saw Colchicum officinale in several pastures ; it 

 is not at all an uncommon plant here. Upon a dry bank I came 

 upon a patch of Sedwn rupestre ; but what I at present take to 

 be my best discovery is a Sedwn which I cannot find described 

 by British botanists : I withhold particulars until next month, 

 as I should wish to be certain that the plant is new to the British 

 Flora, and also that it is the species for which I take it, before I 

 claim the merit of being the first to discover a plant growing wild 

 in England which has hitherto been considered as a Continental 

 species. I am now testing whether it retains its characters under 

 cultivation, and am growing it side by side with Sedum reflexum, 

 which is the only British species with which it can be confounded. 



ANEMONE PULSATILLA, ETC. 



By J. B. 



I had no intention of arriving at any permanent conclusions or 

 building up any extraordinary and improbable theory, when I 

 asked for some information respecting the distribution of Ane- 

 mone Pulsatilla and Asttagalus hypoglottis in the July number of 

 the ' Phytologist.' It was intended merely as a hint for further 

 inquiry and research. I had been struck by the absence of the 

 former plant from the chalk downs of Sussex and Kent, — two 

 counties in which I believe it has never yet been discovered, — 

 and at its comparative abundance all along the line of the lower 



