238 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS AT HARROGATE. 



Rubi, trailing over the huge blocks of gritstone forming Birk Crag. In a 

 bushy swamp over the beck, a favourite place of the adder, Iris 

 pseudacorus L. grew breast-high amid a perfect jungle of Carex 

 paludosa Good., while in opener spots occurred C. hirta L. and 

 Equisetum palustre L. Nearer Harrogate the Frog Orchis, Habcnaria 

 viridis Br., was searched out in a field, and the Bristle-stalked Mud- 

 rush, Scirpus setaceus L., was found fringing a dry ' fish (!) pond ' in the 

 vale of the Oak Beck. The latter is a new record for the Nidd 

 drainage district. At Hookstone Wood, Rudding Park, and in the 

 Crimple Valley, the best observations were Malva moschata L., 

 Echium vulgare L., Typha latifolia L. (very large typical plants, 

 with fruiting spikes nearly one foot in length), Brachypodium 

 sylvaticum B.. & S., and Equisetum maximum Lamk. A discussion 

 was raised at the sectional meeting on the reputed discovery in the 

 Crimple Valley of Myosotis palustris var. strigulosa Reich., but as 

 the specimens were not forthcoming it was corrected to M. ccespi- 

 tosa Schultz. Mr. Lee said that he had examined several plants of 

 both M. palustris and M. caspitosa during the day, and none of them 

 possessed the characters of var. strigulosa, separating it from palustris, 

 namely, more copious appressed hairs of the stem (sometimes they 

 are appressed in true palustris), all the leaves sessile, and the 

 flowers relatively smaller, yet having a much larger corolla than calyx 

 (in ccespitosa they are nearly equal), style about equalling the calyx, 

 and, most delicate test of all, the nutlets keeled in front. In all the 

 examined specimens put down as caispitosa the style was much shorter 

 than the calyx, and the nutlets were not keeled. The last two tests 

 will always separate M. palustris, with its var. strigulosa and sub- 

 species repens, from the distinct species M. ccespitosa. In bright 

 green shining foliage they all very much resemble each other. It is 

 stated in F. Arnold Lees' 'Flora of West Yorkshire,' p. 367, that 

 the var. strigulosa ' is frequent ; away from the lowland marshes 

 it is the commoner form, and ascends to 900 ft.' Here is a problem 

 worth working out by those on the spot, if the low altitude does not 

 already decide the point. As M. ccespitosa does not appear in 

 the ' Flora of West Yorkshire ' to be recorded for Nidd drainage 

 district, this will stand as an addition to vice-county 64, Mid-West 

 York. At Plumpton Rocks, its only known habitat, an unsuc- 

 cessful search was made for Carex pilulifera var. saxumbra Lees. 

 C. muricata L. was found in a meadow near the Lodge. Hereabouts 

 also occurred Lactuca mural is Fresen., Silaus pratetisis Besser 

 (addition to Nidd district ; not mentioned in ' The Flora of West 

 Yorkshire'), Carduus nutans L., Campanula latifolia L. (fine and 

 abundant), and Scabiosa columbaria L. (near Grimbald's Crag. 



Naturalist, 



