246 BOTANICAL REPOKT. 



selected and preserved, botanical specimens can be as satisfactorily 

 studied in the lierbarium years after being gathered as when 

 they are fresh, but, owing to their succulent nature, glassworts 

 lose many of their characteristics in pressing and drying, and a 

 study of herbarium specimens for critical purposes is an 

 unsatisfactory if not even an impossible work. Moreover, the 

 difficulty is further involved by the mutations through which 

 each form goes from the young to the adult stage. 



Many, if not the whole, .of the localities quoted in my 

 "Tentative List" for the old aggregate *S'. herhacea should give 

 S. stricta and S. ramossisima, as well as the variety procumbens, 

 which under the rearrangement of nomenclature now takes 

 specific rank as S. procumhens, Sm. With the hope that it will 

 facilitate investigations, I quote the diagnosis of these three 

 plants as given by Mr. Townsend in the new edition of Ixis 

 " Flora of Hampshire " : — 



S. stricta, Dumort. " Plant erect, branches spreading or 

 ascending, spikes cylindrical, 2 — 3 inches long ; shield somewhat 

 convex ; spiral cells few and ill-formed ; colour green, generally 

 glaucous, never red; 10 — 15 sets of seeds. 



S. procumhens, Sm. Decumbent, never strictly erect, and 

 with a bend at the top of the root ; branches and sub-divisions 

 much shorter and more numerous and divaricate than those of 

 S. stricta, lower branches much longer than the succeeding ones 

 and frequently recurved ; shield concave ; spiral cells numerous 

 and well-formed ; colour at maturity red ; six sets of seeds. 



S. rmnosissima, Woods. A larger plant than either of the 

 preceding, erect, much branched and bushy, branches ascending ; 

 spikes often neither cylindrical nor oblong, but somewhat 

 lanceolate, the longest about 1 inch long; colour grass green 

 touched with red; 10 — 15 sets of seeds." 



2. ADDITIONAL LOCALITIES. 



A full record of what has been done during the year in the 

 way of adding new localities to the plants apjDearing in my 

 " Tentative List " cannot be thought of here. I shall therefore 

 confine my remarks to some of the rarer or local species. 



