A NEW VARIETY OF PARNASSIA PALUSTRIS 255 



It may be of interest at the outset to consider the distribution 

 of Parnassia in the Mersey province, and to cite the local Floras 

 in which reference is made to the littoral plant, with which we 

 are more particularly concerned in this article. 



In Lancashire Parnassia paUtstris is one of a small number 

 of plants, the distribution of which is of special interest from the 

 fact that they occur only in the upland and littoral districts, and 

 are absent from the intervening ground. The nature of the 

 habitats is thus summarized in the Flora of West Lancashire : 

 ** Upland swamps and rill-sides, and damp sandy places near the 

 sea." In West Lancashire (v.-c. 60) Parnassia ixtlustris is not 

 unfrequent in suitable situations, and is recorded for seven out of 

 the eight divisions into which that vice-county was divided for 

 purposes of botanical investigation. In South Lancashire (v.-c. 59) 

 the Grass of Parnassus, as a plant of the uplands, is rarer than in 

 the sister vice-county, being at present only known as occurring 

 in the upper drainage basin of the Eiver Calder, where it is rather 

 plentiful in several localities. It is, however, fairly common, and, 

 in fact, locally abundant, in many of the wet hollows among the 

 sand-dunes which line the coast between the estuaries of the 

 Mersey and the Ribble. It occurs also on the Cheshire coast, but 

 less plentifully, as the dunes there are of a dry type. It will be 

 instructive to quote here the various comments made on the coast 

 plant in the local Floras. Hall, in his Flora of Liverpool, 1839, 

 p. 15, says : — " In damp grassy spots among the sandhills, on the 

 shores of the Mersey. ... I have specimens from Hoylake 

 which are scarcely an inch high, the flower just appearing above 

 the leaves, which are all radical, and specimens are rarely met 

 loith more than six inches high." Dickinson's Flora of Liverpool, 

 1851, p. 30, says : — " Common in bogs, and wet places amongst 

 the sandhills on both sides of the Mersey," and he cites as 

 locahties New Brighton, Hoylake, Seaforth, Formby, Southport, 

 &c. The Flora of Liverpool, 1873, p. 63, has the following 

 notes: — " Moist places amongst the sandhills. Frequent. Much 

 scarcer on the Cheshire than on the Lancashire side of the 

 Mersey. About Ainsdale it is very abundant, making white large 

 tracts of ground in the hollows of the sandhills. We have no 

 inland localities recorded." Green {Flora of the Liverpool Dis- 

 trict, 1902, p. 54) says : — " Moist places among the sandhills ; 

 frequent." Several littoral stations, all in the Wirral peninsula, 

 are cited, but, curiously enough, no reference is made to the 

 Lancashire localities. The illustration (op. cit. fig. 209) represents 

 the type rather than the sand-dune plant. In Lord De Tabley's 

 Flora of Cheshire, 1899, p. 143, \ve read: — "Moist grassy vallies 

 amongst the coast sandhills ; moory elevated pastures, and upon 

 the low moss-lands. ... Is a great rarity in the plain of 

 Cheshire." He cites Seaman's Moss Pits, Hale Moss, near 

 Altrincham, and Pickmere Mere as stations in the moss-land, and 

 as httoral locahties, " New Brighton, 1837, Watson. New Brighton 

 to Leasowe, but not very plentifully. About Leasowe it occurs 

 in greater quantity, extending into the meadows south of the 



