26 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



meadow, I regret to say, and not a pasture ; for the Shepherd's 

 Purse is much rarer in meadow than pasture. One side of it, 

 however, is along the liedge dividing it from a pasture ; and from 

 this pit, where it is now only rarely found, Capsella has escaped 

 through the hedge into the pasture, and in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of the old pit it is protected by nettles {Urtica dioica). 

 It is the normally coloured form, however, like the one found on 

 Thorne Waste, or in the rabbit-eaten lane at Blyton, not the 

 ixiscua form of the pre-historic pit at Newstead. In other words, 

 neither on the peat-bog, nor in the lane, nor in the pasture from 

 this grassed down modern pit, has there been time for natural 

 protective- colour selection to do its work, as there seems to have 

 been at Newstead. I have noticed this form in other places, but 

 never as perfectly developed as at Newstead. 



SHORT NOTES. 



Mertensia maritima in Norfolk. — In the Botanical Exchange 

 Club Beport for 1910 (1911) there is a record of the above species 

 for the coast of Norfolk (Prof. P. W. Oliver). In the year 1905 it was 

 seen on that coast by Mr. W. H. Burrell, pointed out to him by a 

 resident. He kindly sent me a specimen with a map and drawing 

 of the neighbourhood, and published a note on its occurrence in 

 Trans. Norf. & Norw. Nat. Soc. viii. 201 (1906). It grows on the 

 shingle beach, and its survival for six years is interesting. The 

 situation is a lonely one, rarely trodden except by an ornithologist 

 or a stray botanist. No ballast is shot near, the vessels only 

 bringing coal, salt-cake, granite, and manure, and no Scotch 

 fishing-boats call there. In England the plant occurs on the 

 west, south to Walney Island (51° 5' N. lat.), Anglesea (extinct), 

 Carnarvon (53° N. lat.), and formerly at Great Orme's Head. On 

 the east, south to Holy Island and Bamborough (Pox sp.) on the 

 coast of Northumberland. In Ireland at Wicklow Head (53° N. 

 lat.), where it was formerly plentiful, but in 1872 had become rare 

 (Cyb. Hib. ed. 2, 242, 1898). This seems to be the most southerly 

 station, but it is said to have occurred at Beal Castle beach 

 (52° 35' N. lat.), Cyb. I.e. Its Norfolk station is about 52° 55' 

 N. lat. It has been reported for Kent, Hants, Devon, Cornwall, 

 and Cardigan, but with no confirmation since 1805. 



Its distribution outside the British Isles is : — Europe : Spitz- 

 bergen, Jan-Mayen, Iceland, the Paroes, North and South 

 Norway, Sweden, Bohutslan (57° 30'), Pinland, south to 64° 

 39', Russian and Pinnish Lapland, Denmark, Jutland at 57° 

 N. lat. Asia: Along the Arctic coast to Behring Strait. America : 

 Greenland. Canada south to 49°, and to Massachusetts in the 

 United States (41° N. lat.). 



Thus there is no climatal or distributional reason against its 

 being a Norfolk plant. Norman (Index. Suppl. Nat. Spec. (1864), 

 p. 28) gives a form, " epruinosa, foliis obscuris virescentibus," 



