452 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



east of Beds. On Oct. 6th I found it in fine fruit in Birchin 

 Grove Wood, on the south-west border of the county, about 

 twenty miles distant from Abbot's station. Here it is distributed 

 over several square poles, on sandy soil, associated with brambles, 

 young birches, and Polytrichum formosum. This record removes 

 the query associated with this species in the lists of the flora of 

 the various river systems published in the Victoria County His- 

 tory, Beds, vol. i. p. 50, compiled by Messrs. G. C. Druce A 

 J. Hamson. The distribution olLycopodium clavatum in Beds and 

 Herts suggests that probably it grows in Bucks, possibly in the 

 Lower Greensand area of Bow Brickhill and Little Brickhill. — 

 James Saunders. 



Ranunculus tripartitus DC. — Mr. C. E. Salmon has kindly 

 lent us a series of excellent specimens of the Ranunculus collected 

 by Mr. E. S. Salmon at Catspred, East Sussex, in 1894, and 

 referred by Mr. C. E. Salmon to R. tripartitus in a note in the 

 Report of the Watson Exchange Club for 1905-6, reprinted on page 

 161 of this Journal for the present year. An examination of these 

 specimens confirms the opinion we had already formed that the 

 plant is R* lutarius Bouvet = R. intermedins " Knaf " Hiern. 

 Mr. Salmon's plant has more completely multifid lower leaves 

 than we had previously seen in R. lutarius, but they are few in 

 number and the segments are distinctly flattened and of an appre- 

 ciable width, besides apparently diverging more or less in the 

 same plane, w r hereas in R. tripartitus the segments are truly 

 capillary, extremely fine, and more or less tassel-like, and under 

 normal conditions of growth the multifid leaves are fairly nume- 

 rous. There are a number of other less defined characters in 

 which Mr. Salmon's plant agrees with R. lutarius rather than 

 jR. tripartitus ; the upper leaves are more nearly peltate, being less 

 deeply divided and the lobes being broader and more rounded, 

 corresponding with those of large robust forms of R. lutarius ; in 

 several specimens there are well-marked transitional leaves such 

 as occur in the New Forest lutarius when it produces multifid 

 leaves, and which are absent in R. tripartitus ; the stems, petioles 

 and peduncles are stouter, the stipules larger, and the carpels are 

 larger and broader. We do not see any near affinity between Mr. 

 Salmon's plant and R. ololeucos Lloyd. Up to the present we 

 have only seen true R. tripartitus from four localities in the 

 British Isles, viz., Mullion, Cornwall W., J. Cunnack (1879) ; 

 Innes Moor, near Roche, Cornwall E., R. V. Tellam (1876) ; near 

 Wadebridge, Cornwall E., where it was discovered last year by Mr. 

 Clement Reid, from whom and from Dr. Vigurs we have received 

 a good series of specimens ; and near Baltimore, Co. Cork, R. A- 



Phillips (1896).— H. & J. Groves. 



Ecology of Montia fontana (pp. 211, 282, and 306).— I 



agree that Mr. Riley's kind of habitat is excellently described, 

 except that, as Mr. West points out, Montia does not grow in 

 spongy bogs, even " with a very slight trickle of water." Neither 

 in the streams on the Quantock Hills in Somerset, quoted by Mr. 



