ON THE DISArrEARANCE OF NATIVE PLANTS. S.J'J 



Fourth Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr, A. W. Wills 

 {Chairman), Mr. E. W. Badger, Mr. G-. Clakidge Druce, and 

 Professor Hillhouse, for the purpose of collecting information 

 as to the Disappearance of Native Plants frorii their Local 

 Habitats. Draivn up by Professor Hillhouse, Secretary. 



For the present report the Committee solicited details as to Wales, the 

 border counties from Shropshire southwards, and the south-western 

 counties of England. As no returns have been received from Welsh 

 correspondents, and of the border counties only Shropshire is represented, 

 the report must be considered as applying to the last-named county and 

 the south-western counties of England. Some details as to South Wales 

 will be found in the report for 1890. In drawing up the list the Com- 

 mittee have followed the same rales as in previous years, the numbering 

 and nomenclature throughout being that of the ' London Catalogue,' 

 ed. 8, corrected reprint for 1890. 



Lists have been received from ten personal correspondents whose 

 initials are appended, in addition to which the Bath branch of the 

 Selborne Society appointed a Committee to provide returns as to the 

 Bath district. The Committee feel compelled to refer to the admirable 

 work of this young but strong and active Society in promoting the object 

 which the Committee have in view, work which, of its kind, is beyond 

 praise. 



As will be seen, the diminution of our native ferns again plays an 

 important part in the list, and the 'collector' and 'dealer' figure 

 largely. It is a matter of common and everyday knowledge that ferns 

 have (with the exception of the bracken) disappeared from the local 

 floras of our large towns ; but the ravages of the dealer are carried on so 

 systematically, and with the aid of all the resources that money places at 

 his disposal, that the most out-of-the-way places can be stripped quite as 

 completely as those near at hand. All the Devonshire correspondents 

 bear common witness to the results of his depredations in that ideal home 

 of the fern. 



One of our correspondents, reporting upon the area of the Bristol 

 Coal-fields, writes : 



Before coming' to the few instances of partial or complete extinction upon 

 which I am reporting, I should like to say that my experience as a field-botanist, 

 familiar with most of the species native in the South and West of England, has 

 led me to receive with caution and distrust reported disappearances of rare plants 

 from their habitats in this part of the country. On investigation it has almost 

 invariably turned out that such reported extinctions were not well founded, and 

 had frequently been made by persons imperfectly acquainted either with the plants 

 themselves or with the localities where they grow. Not long since a letter was 

 published in the London ' Standard ' which condemned the ' wantonness of 

 botanists,' in that they had compassed the destruction of the Euphorbia pilosit 

 near l^ath, and the Cheddar Pink. My knowledge of both convinced me that the 

 writer had entirely missed the station for the former plant, and that he could not 

 have visited Cheddar when I), casius was in bloom. Some other supposed extinc- 

 tions have proved to rest on the apparent disappearance of species (particularly 

 annuals) in an unfavourable season, or succession of seasons. But these plants have 

 been found to reappear when the depressing climatal influence has been withdrawn. 

 As examples may be mentioned Cicuta virosa and lihijncospora fusca, ancient 



