233 V. SUMMARY OF DISTRIBUTIOX. 



and near Liverpool, would require much better authority than any yet 

 given for those unlikely localities. The seeming authority of Mr. 

 Borrer even did not suffice to prevent distrust of the alleged locality for 

 Pyrola secunda in Sussex, as expressed in volume second, page 162; 

 and lightly so, as it subsequently appeared, when the error was ex- 

 plained in volume third, page 468. If all such records had been 

 reckoned in, whatever their degree of probability or improbability, many 

 of the plants would have had higher figures assigned to them in the 

 census column. The numbers will in some degree subserve the second 

 purpose of an index to the place of the same plant in the more expanded 

 ' Census of Species,' intended to be printed in the next section of this 

 volume. Their sum total for each order is given in the intermediate 

 lines, as the 'census' of the orders, comparatively with the number of 

 included species. 



6. Type of Distribution. — In the sixth and last column the geo- 

 graphic types are indicated by their initial letters. These types were 

 explained in volume first, pages 43 to 55. It was there particularly 

 remarked, on page 54, that no abrupt line of severance or distinction 

 could be traced between the groups of species so arranged ; although, 

 taken apart, the special character of their distribution is real. The use 

 of two sets of initial letters is intended to meet this tendency towards 

 transition from pne type or distribution to another, through plants which 

 have more or less an intei'mediate area. The capital letter will be un- 

 derstood to indicate the leading type of distribution for the species. 

 The addition of a second small letter, the initial one of another type, 

 will signify that the actual distribution of the species partially ap- 

 proaches also to that second type, — or, that it is somewhat intermediate 

 between the two types, though nearest to that one indicated by the 

 capital letter. Thus, for the first plant in the series, the letters 'Eg' 

 indicate that the distribution of the Clematis is English or southern, 

 somewhat more difi"used or more plentiful on the germanic or eastern 

 side of the island. Again, the single letter ' H ' for Thalictrum alpinum 

 shows that this arctic species is assigned to the Highland or mountain 

 type, with no evident tendency towards any other. The letter ' I ' distin- 

 guishes some few plants which are found chiefly or exclusively in Mid 

 Britain, and which are thus Intermediates not well assignable to any of 

 the other geographic types. The note of doubt or interrogation ' ?' is to 

 be understood as an expression of uncertainty about the proper type to 

 which the plant should be referred, either primarily or secondarily. 



