380 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



intended for B. circinatus, and if Schrank discriminated B. cir- 

 cinatus he would have quoted the var. ft rather than the type. It 

 may therefore be concluded, we think, that Schrank did not 

 discriminate between B. trichophyllus and B. circinatus, but that he 

 merely took up Haller's species, which had been already named 

 trichophyllus by Chaix, and this being the case, it appears to us 

 that B. circinatus Sibthorp must stand. — H. & J. Groves. 



New Variety of Spergula arvensis L. — A small form of 

 Spergula has been under consideration for some years, sent me 

 from Guernsey first by Mr. J. W. White in 1890, when I wrote 

 out a description of it, thinking it was at least new to Britain. 

 For several years I waited for fuller material, and for ripe fruit ; 

 and then in the same season fruiting specimens were given me by 

 Mr. White from Jersey, and Miss Dawber from Guernsey. I 

 sowed some seed at once, but only one plant escaped slugs, and 

 that came on too late and died before flow T ering. This plant, 

 however, maintained the dwarf habit, and was prostrate in this 

 early stage. The seeds being densely papillose bring it under var. 

 vulgaris Koch. My thanks are due to Mr. E. G. Baker for com- 

 paring my specimens with those in the British Museum of var. 

 gliUinosa Lange, which differs from the new variety in being a 

 larger plant, densely glandular pubescent and in the seeds being 

 white-margined; and also for giving me the original description 

 of var. gracilis E. Petit, which is chiefly distinguished by the acute 

 sepals. I append a description : — 



Spergula arvensis L. var. nana, nov. var. Stems several, 

 1-6 in. long, prostrate or decumbent, usually very short. Leaves 

 ■£-£ in., rigid, about as long as the internodes. Flowers £ in. 

 diam. at the base of the few-flowered cymes, smaller upwards ; 

 sepals broadly ovate-oblong, obtuse, glandular-pubescent on the 

 back. Capsules subglobose, lowest (largest) -J in. diam., smaller 

 upwards, on pedicels twice as long, more or less; seeds densely 

 papillose, smaller than the type, wing black. This variety grows 

 on dry spots near the shore in Guernsey and Jersey, and is soon 

 over, flowering in April and even in late March, and fruiting in 

 May. It is not much earlier than the type, which also fruits in 

 May in dry sunny spots in Hants and Dorset, but the latter goes 

 on springing up through the summer and autumn and fruiting as 

 late as October and November. — E. F. Linton. 



Calamagrostis lanceoijAta Roth in Essex. — This plant, which 

 is queried for Essex in Top. Bot., I saw in August growing sparingly 

 on the swampy border of a pond in the parish of Maplestead, 

 North Essex. — G. Claridge L)ruce. 



Branching in Palms. — Mr. Eidley has a paper on this subject 

 in the Annals of Botany for July, which contains observations 

 additional to those published by Sir D. Morris in Journ. Linn. 

 Soc. xxix. (1892). Neither writer refers to the interesting note by 

 Mr. H. 0. Forbes published (with a plate) in this Journal for 

 1879, p. 193, on a cocoa-nut palm which at about that date had 

 twenty-five living axillary branches, with scars of fifty- two. 



