65 
POTAMOGETON RUTILUS Wotre. IN BRITAIN. 
By Arruur Bennett, F.L.S. 
(Piate 407.) 
I am indebted to Mr. C. E. Salmon, of Reigate, for the sight of 
the first British specimen that I can certainly refer to Wolfgang’s 
species. The specimens (mixed with P. pectinatus L. on one sheet) 
are part of a collection presented to the Holmesdale Natural 
History Club by Dr. J. A. Power many years ago, and were detected 
in going over these plants to confirm the names. I advised that 
the plant should be left, and that search should be made for it. Mr. 
Salmon communicated with Mr. J. E. Bagnall, as he was more or 
less in the neighbourhood of both localities named on the sheet of 
specimens, which are, ‘‘ Coventry Canal, Atherstone’’; ‘‘ Marl Pits, 
Fradley, Staffordshire.’ Mr. Bagnall wrote: ‘I am sorry to 
have to say that I find no trace of P. rutilus at either the Ather- 
stone Canal or any of the marl-pits near Fradley. Atherstone Canal 
is now very bare of interesting aquatics; even those which in former 
days were abundant, such as P. zosterifolius, are quite absent now, 
the canal being apparently cleared recently. ere are many marl- 
pits at and near Fradley, some of them still continuing to be more 
or less filled with water, the pits neargst to Fradley being mostly 
choked with Anacharis. Some of the outlying pits which I visited 
are either ordinary duck-ponds, and quite bare of vegetable life, or 
else so dried up as to be mere swamps. One I visited, which has 
evidently not only been of large size (about fifteen yards square, and 
very deep), but was formerly well filled with aquatic growth, has 
now only an undergrowth of Carex paniculata and a large overgrowth 
of sallows and willows. It is so long since [Joseph| Power lived in 
the neighbourhood of Fradley, that the physical characters of the 
country around are completely changed. He must have visited this 
district when he lived at Polesworth in the beginning of the present 
century, and, being a well-known man in the district, would have 
access to places that would not be so accessible to one like myself; 
although I have visited all the marl-pits I find marked on the six- 
inch Ordnance map, there may have been in his day some that are 
now filled up.” : 
It may be that the dry season of last summer has dried up the 
pools near Fradley where the P. rutilus grew. Mr. Bagnall has 
promised to make another search this year. sic 
The following is a translation of the original description of 
P. rutilus in Roem. & Schultes, Syst. Veg. Mant. ui 362 :-— 
‘« Stem compressed, reddish, lower portion more or less branched, 
upper quite simple, slender ; leaves all submerged, sessile, alternate, 
narrow-linear, flat, gradually narrowing to a mucro, sprea ing» 
3-nerved, ruddy, obscurely biglandular; peduncles elongated ; 
spikes 6-7-flowered, reddish; flowers alternately opposite In pairs ; 
anthers apiculate. Wolfg. MS. n. 28. Besser in litt. 
Journat or Botany.—Vou. 88. [Marcx, 1900.] F 
