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NOTE ON HELLEBORINE ATRO-RUBENS 

 var. CROWTHERI. 



F. ARNOLD LEES, M.R.C.S., 



Leeds. 



Mr. Druce asks me to say something of my local knowledge 

 as I have quarried in the Grassington woods through several 

 years. Three, if not four of the segregate formes, or (as gardeners 

 say) ' strains,' which ' come true ' under cultivation, of the 

 latifolian Hellehorine, occur under differing circumstances as 

 to exposure and aspect, in ' Grass,' with ' Bastow ' Wood ; 

 and it is my conviction that these long-acting local differences, 

 aided by chance impartial insect visitation, explain the modifi- 

 cations in ex-specilic features of growth we dub cross-varieties. 

 Moreover, we find other species so far apart in type as Arenaria 

 verna, Potentilla verna and Valeriana officinalis varying (among 

 themselves) in lines parallel to those of the Epipactis group. 

 On the spoil slope below the old Roman lead-getting trench 

 (now overgrown with trees), the vernal leadwort straggles 

 laxly amid the grass, and has acquired a facies totally different 

 from the trim cushions of the same species a mile away on 

 Sweet Side. On exposed ridges of Bastow there grows what 

 some botanists consider to be Potentilla eu-verna, while in 

 Dibscar ' Cove,' and on the limestone faces of the same scrub- 

 clothed slack an old forest area — with Hellehorine atro-nihens 

 (type) grows trailing, hairy long-petioled Potentilla alpestris 

 or maciilata with blood-orange pigmentation at the base of the 

 petal, due to concentration of xanthine. The Valerian varies 

 from sambucifolia (by the riverside) to typic Mikanii of dr}-- 

 soil woodland. 



The particular form of Hellehorine which Mr. Druce has 

 named Crowtheri rests as yet iipon a single specimen of huge 

 stature, 33 inches or thereabouts from crown of root to tip of 

 stem, the ' No. 5 " of a series of selected specimens gathered 

 August i6th, 1909, by Mr. John Crowther, of Grassington, and 

 submitted to Mr. Druce, who styled it ' extraordinary.' The 

 Hellehorine grows in clumps of two or three, four, or even 

 five assurging stems, over some hundred or more square 

 yards of broken ground, the spoil heap slopes of ancient lead 

 workings, and as we see it now, is tree-shaded and sheltered 

 snugly from winds. The items of the colon}' exhibit consider- 



1910 Mar. I. 



