78 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
barley since 1892. Sweepings from our lofts sometimes get into 
the river.” He me my doubt as to Glyceria festuceformis being 
indigenous in Co. Down. 
But, in addition, there are in Comiier; besides the distillery, large 
flour mills, which, though 1 now like most similar mills. throughout 
Ireland idle, yet formerly did a large business, and used a consider- 
able quantity of Egyptian wheat in the course of the trade. An 
my a has very kindly taken the trouble to ascertain 
that tos his Mediterranean wheat was ground it had all to be 
washed, so that various se from this source must have found 
their le rites the Comber River 
hen a map of Down is ‘ebaeeed. it is easy to see that on 
the ebb of every tide, whatever objects are seg at by the Comber 
River into the head of Strangford Lough must go with the run of 
the water south-east, precisely in the Sriskion of the Ards shore 
from Comber, and when * Ee fast in mind that our prevailing 
winds are westerly, it doe require an elastic imagination to 
suppose seeds from Co es Distillery lofts, favoured by stream and 
tide and wind, finding a resting-place where Mr. Praeger had the 
good fortune to gather his plants of Irish-grown Glyceria festuce- . 
formis. While the fact which he mentions, that these plants grew 
nearer the water’s margin than the dster Tripolium and Glyceria 
maritima of the indigenous flora, suggests pate having only lately 
some fake and that they were too recent immigrants to have had 
tim. mingle more thoroughly and farther afield with the real 
natives 
Sore H. W. Lert. 
I am obliged to the Editor for allowing me (with the ere: 
consent) to see Canon Lett’s note before publication, and I hav 
read his statement with much interest. In the following oe 
I treat his hypothesis at some length, because it seems to me that 
and value of evidence in cases of this ae and proceed on lines 
which cannot be ye ed as either logical or scientific. First, let 
me say that I-was not unmindful of ee: aiiakelen of distilleries and 
former flour-mills at Comber. On many occasions during the last 
twenty years I ne studied the alien planta which languish on the 
rubbish-heaps ther 
Canon Lett’s any is that seeds of Glyceria festuceformis came 
© Comber with foreign grain, were thrown into the Comber River, 
rried by wind and ‘tide down and across Strangford Lough, and 
Stained a foothold along the several — of coast on which a 
present the plant is known to grow. Now, to bring the hypothesis 
within the range of probability, several tees an contribute. 
First, some evidence is required of the probability, or even possi- 
bility, of the seed of the grass reaching the wy sd or flour-mill. 
What is the case as regards this point? The foreign grain which 
is quoted as having ‘been used at Oornbier, 4 is barley from Algeria 
and wheat from Egypt. Now, G. festuceformis does not grow in 
igeria, nor in Egypt, nor indeed anywhere on the southern shores 
