336 ROTHERAY : ARENARIA GOTHICA IN WEST YORKSHIRE. 



and urging me to send a specimen to Mr. J. Gilbert Baker of Kew 

 Herbarium. A specimen was accordingly sent, and in a few days 

 Mr. Baker wrote, saying that he put the plant under Arenaria 

 norvegica, but that it differed from the Shetland form of that species 

 in its looser habit and narrower leaves. He added, however, that 

 they had plants of the same form as mine from Iceland, gathered 

 there by Prof. Babington in 1846. At Mr. Baker's suggestion, I also 

 sent a specimen plant to Prof. Babington, who concurred with 

 Mr. Baker in calling it A. norvegica, saying that the only difference 

 was in the longer internodes and laxer habit of growth. A few days 

 later I despatched another specimen to Mr. F. Arnold Lees, Leeds, 

 and he also was of the same opinion as Messrs. Baker and Babington, 

 only he said that 'its leaves were more pointed and less succulent, 

 and with longer internodes than usual. It is, too, less smooth, more 

 rough, like a form of A. serpyllifolia, but the capsules are larger. 

 It may be really an altered form of A. norvegica? A little later, 

 however, Mr. Lees seems to have mistrusted or suspected the 

 correctness of his first determination of the plant as A. norvegua, 

 and sent two specimens to Mr. W. Whitwell, with a request to submit 

 them to Mr. Arthur Bennett of Croydon. After looking at the 

 plants for some time, during which Mr. Bennett and Mr. Whitwell 

 talked much about them, the former also seemed at first to think 

 they were true A. norvegica, nor did he hit upon the true determina- 

 tion until he compared them with specimens of A. gothica sent him 

 from Sweden by Prof. Nilsson, the confirmation of this being also 

 witnessed by Mr. Whitwell, who avers that the correspondence of 

 both plants to each other was at once apparent and complete. 



Such is a concise history of the discovery and determination 

 of the plant so far as I have been able to obtain it from those to 

 whom the specimens have been submitted. Whether or not it is 

 a native of the habitat and place in which it was discovered by me 

 is a question into which I shall not enter, but leave for further 

 investigation and consideration to those more competent to deal with 

 the subject than I am ; and to whatever rank the plant may be 

 ultimately relegated, I sincerely trust that its position and place will 

 be strictly guarded from being made public by those who know of it, 

 in order that the plant may grow and flourish and be protected from 

 being annihilated as many others have been. It is a point of no 

 small distinction to have in West Yorkshire a plant new to the 

 district, but the distinction is greatly enhanced when it is considered 

 that the plant in question is not only new to West Yorkshire, but 

 also to the British Flora, a circumstance which renders it all the 

 more worthy of protection by all lovers of plant-life. 



Naturalist, 



