PLOBA OP THE BRISTOL COAL-FIELD. 



123 



locality on the eastern border of the Grloucester- 

 shiro portion of the district, where the plant does 

 not appear to have been recently observed, and is, 

 wo have reason to fear, now extinct. 

 The Pcrrin Herbarium, referred to above, is an in- 

 teresting collection in a local point of view, as it 

 contains, in addition to Dr. Pcrrin'.s own specimens, 

 several which were collected by the late Mr. S. 

 Rootsey, a well-known Bristol botanist, and by one 

 of his daughters. Among other valuable plants in 

 this herbarium is an example, the only one we have 

 ever seen, of the now extinct Vicia hyhrida, Linn., 

 which, in its hairy standard and other characters. 



agrees well with the descriptic 



and figure hi 

 " English Botany." This specimen, although un- 

 fortunately without any particulars of locality or 

 date, was presumably gathered on Glastonbury Tor 

 Hill, the only spot in Great Britain from whence 

 V. hyhrida has ever been recorded ; but both that 

 vetch and Vicia lutea, which formerly grew at the 

 same place, have long since boon lost, the latter 

 plant surviving a few years after the former had 

 disappeared. 



In conclusion, 1 may perhaps be allowed to refer to a 

 matter of interest to local niituralists, and con- 

 nected with the Bristol Flora, that arises from an 

 attack made a short time ago in the columns of 

 the Standard newspaper upon the " Wantonness of 

 Botanists." The botanical fraternity throughout 

 tho kingdom were accused of pitilessly compassing 

 the destruction of indigenous rarities by digging 



