408 REVIEWS. [April, 



The Grasses of Great Britain. Illustrated by J. E. Sowerby. 

 Described by C. Johnson, Esq. 



Plant collectors and historical botanists will be delighted to 

 hear that Stipa pennata, the discovery of which, as recorded by 

 Ray, Richardson, and Lawson, has been deemed apocryphal by 

 our most distinguished critical botanists, is still to be found not 

 far from its old haunts, certainly in the same county, teste the 

 following : — " Since writing the above concerning the alleged 

 former habitat in Westmoreland of this beautiful and curious 

 member of the Grass family, I have been assured that it is still 

 occasionally to be met with, growing in rock-fissures of the 

 mountain limestone, of the wild Pennine district of the county ; 

 a circumstance worthy the notice of enthusiastic collectors of 

 our botanical rarities. It may be further stated that my in- 

 formant, a native of the county, communicated the localities, 

 more than one, in which he himself had found it ; but the plea- 

 sure of research is always enhanced by the uncertainty attending 

 its results ; and having a fellow-feeling with my friend and late 

 pupil, against the obliteration of rare species, which has so often 

 followed the publication of their little nooks and corners of ■ 

 refuge, they must here remain untold, and my kind readers rest 

 content with a scrap of advice that no naturalist would be justi- 

 fied in spurning : ' Search, and ye may find.^ " 



This good advice it is to be hoped no reader of the Phytologist 

 will spurn ; but if the counsel of an old stager may be worth 

 hearing, we advise, before setting out on what might eventually 

 be as fruitless as looking for figs on thistles, that the enthusiastic 

 collector of the botanical rarities should take the precaution of 

 asking the author of Sowerby's ' British Grasses,' the name of his 

 friend and informant who communicated the interesting fact. The 

 ''^wild Pennine district of the county " may present no greater 

 difficulties than Malham Cove,Gordale,or even Hampstead Heath, 

 but it has a more formidable aspect. The recent discovery of 

 Dry as octopetala in North Wales, known there and recorded up- 

 wards of sixty years, is a proof that scepticism in the accounts of 

 discoveries made in past ages may be carried too far. Still 

 caution is to be commended, and good counsel should not be 

 spurned. 



