248 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Caley." The entry of sales is very brief: single copies were sold 

 at 18s. each on May 11 to " Mr. M. M ; May 24 to Mr. Woodward 

 and Sir Thomas Cullum ; on July 6 to Mr. Spence. 



* James Britten. 



SHORT NOTES. 



British Rubi. — It may be useful to supplement Mr. Moyle 

 Rogers's general criticism of Dr. Gilbert's position (pp. 210, 211) 

 by a few particular examples. — R. Jissus Lindl. This cannot be 

 suberectus x casius, being abundant in some districts in Scotland 

 from which R. ccesius is absent. The fissus which I have seen 

 sparingly in Berks and E. Kent is not quite like the typical 

 northern plant, but comes nearer to R. suberectus. — R, Rogersii 

 Linton. This, again, is certainly not affinis x nitidus. The Scottish 

 counties in which it is most plentiful produce neither of the sug- 

 gested parents ; and it has no close connection with true R. affinis. 

 R. holerythros Focke and R. rhombifolius Weihe are suggested to be 

 11 both hybrids of affinis with the same or different Rhamnifolians." 

 Now, in the heath-country between Godalming and Haslemere, 

 Surrey, holerythros is locally abundant, and produces plenty of large, 

 fine fruit (in my experience, the numerous bramble-hybrids are at 

 least partially sterile) ; rhombifolius also occurs in some scattered 

 spots, at a long distance from the one very limited station known 

 to me thereabouts for affinis. Under such circumstances, the 

 hybrid theory mentioned above is clearly untenable ; moreover, it 

 does not agree with the characters of holerythros and rhombifolius 

 as a whole. — The main lesson which I draw from Dr. Gilbert's 

 paper is that it is dangerous for M local botanists " to generalize too 

 confidently from the special phenomena of their own neighbour- 

 hood, without due regard to wider researches. — Edward S. Marshall. 



Irish Plants. — In the Irish Naturalist for April Mr. Druce has 

 some interesting notes on plants observed during his visit to Ire- 

 land last autumn. Of Sisyrinchium californicum, described and 

 figured in this Journal for 1896, pp. 366, 494, Mr. Druce writes : 

 u In the locality where the Rev. E. S. Marshall discovered it at 

 Rosslare, in the greatest abundance over many acres. It must be 

 remembered that a few miles south of the station for this Western 

 American species is Carnsore Point, on which, as my driver said, 

 there had been more wrecks than almost any point in Ireland. It 

 is easy, therefore, to imagine a wreck of Indian corn, as in the case 

 of the Polygonum sagittatum, drifting on the coast at or near Ross- 

 lare, and in this manner bringing the seeds of the Californian 

 species. The plant seeds very freely, and one could not walk about 

 amongst it without scattering the seeds. Moreover, I examined 

 several pads of earth which had been scattered from the feet of 

 horses, and in each case saw seeds adhering, so that the animals 

 grazing in the meadows would assist to distribute it when once 

 established. Moreover, the locality is subject to floods, and these 

 would also assist in its dispersal. The fact remains that the plant 



