BOTANICAL KEPORT. 251 



I'poords. With tlioso at liis sovvio(\ tlio fompilor of a local flora 

 would he ahle to test cacli record, and his work would ho safe- 

 g'uarded af^'ainst many of tht^ lanunitahle errors which have found 

 their way into hooks of this kind. In the ahsence of voucher 

 specimens, I now make it an ahsolute rule to accept no ro^cord, 

 whether old or recent, for critical species, unless the record is 

 from an ohserver of known ability. Had this condition been 

 earlier enforced, much of the work that has heen done in 

 Cornwall and elsewhere would have heen relieved of the charge 

 of inaccuracy, a charg-e in many instances unfortunately only too 

 true. 



Last year I mentioned the names of thirty-three plants 

 which at some time or othin- had heen mentioned as occur- 

 ring in Cornwall, and which I considered had not the 

 slightest shadow of claim to our soil. Further investigations 

 compel me to add anotlier tifteen plants to the lists of exclusions. 



Ranunculus fluitans, Lam., var. Bachii (Wirtg.). In the 



"Annual Report" of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society for 

 1850, Mr. H. Charlt(Mi Bastian mentions this plant as occurring in 

 a pond at Glendurgau. According to Dr. Ralfs' "Flora," the 

 late Mr. AV. Cnrnow also gathered the plant there in 1878. I 

 very naturally shrink from challenging a record hy two such 

 eminent botanists, but in the absence of voucher specimens I see 

 no other course than to omit the plant from the Cornish list. It 

 must not be forgotten that Ii. ffiiifons is tj-pically a plant of 

 rivers, not of ponds, and that even as late as the date of 

 Mr. Curnow's record our Batrachian Ranunciili were but badly 

 understood by our very best botanists. If the plant is ever 

 re-discovered at Glendurgau, it will probably be found to be 

 B. peltatm. Mr. J. C!unnack's West Cornwall record for 

 R. fluitans/m "Topographical Botany," 1883, is undoubtedly 

 identical with Bastian' s, of whose paper in the Polytechnic 

 Society's "Report" both Mr. Cimnack and Mr, F, P. Pascoe 

 made extensive use when drawing up their list of Cornish plants 

 for Mr. H. C, W^atson. 



Fumaria muralis, Sonder. Three places are (quoted for 

 this species in my "Tentative List." The specimens on the 

 strength of which the plant was regarded as Cornish have 



