2 
Ingham: Sagina reutert Boiss. 38 
~ 
~ 
petition; it is also remarkable that the letters ‘e. k. r-o-b-i-n-s-o-n’ 
occur in the first four lines :— 
Said the humming-bird to the shrew 
‘ If I were as dowdy as you 
I'd keep to the house.’ 
‘ Fiddle’! answered the mouse 
I'm a Country Side piffler, arn't you ? 
We have filled in the last line, in case any of our readers care 
to compete for a badge—or whatever the prize may be. There 
need be no fear of the source being detected, as Mr. Alfred 
Austin Robinson never sees ‘The Naturalist.’ * 
= 
SAGINA REUTERI BOISS. : 
A NATIVE OF THE BRITISH FLORA. 
W.°%INGHAM, B.A. 
York. 
On the 11th August, 1906, I found this small flowering plant on 
the bed of a very old pool, almost dried up. This was on 
Skipwith Common, near Selby, in V.C. 61, in a truly wild 
habitat, with no sign of alien plants of any kind associated 
with it. 
It is known as an alien plant from Worcestershire, Cheshire, 
and Lancashire, but there is the strongest evidence that it is 
native on Skipwith Common. Its associates there were Mentha 
pulegium, Apium nodiflorum var. repens, Limosella aquatica, 
Veronica scutellata var. hirsuta, and the Hepatic Riccza 
crystallina. Additional evidence given by Dr. F. N. Williams, 
our authority on the Caryophyllaceous order of plants, who has 
examined the specimen sent to him by Mr. Wheldon from me, is 
as follows :—‘ Although differing in appearance from the very 
glandular forms of this plant you (Mr. Wheldon) have previously 
sent me (Vide Ex. Club Rep., 1902), they belong to S. Reuéerz, 
and are indeed more like the original Portuguese specimens 
than the Lancashire plants.’ The Skipwith Common plant is 
quite eglandular, and a few plants only were gathered, as it 
was first thought to be S. apetala. 
It is clear that Swezna Reuter is a native addition to the 
British Flowering Plants. 
* This ‘fine contest of skill and brains’ is apparently not suitable for 
the readers of the ‘Country Side,’ and has been discontinued ! 
1907 November 1. 
