BOTANY 
intricatd for the first time as a Bedfordshire plant, as well as several 
commoner forms. He has turned his attention also to the mosses, and 
more recently to the Mycetozoa. 
Mr. T. B. Blow of Welwyn, Herts, made some additions to the 
county flora which were published in the Report of the Botanical Record 
Club. He also found Phalaris phalaroides in the county. 
Mr. R. A. Pryor, F.L.S., the author of the Flora of Herts, added 
several plants to the county list including Vicia gracilis and Potamogeton 
praelongus. He also made a critical examination of Abbot’s herbarium 
and published accounts of it in the "fourna/ of Botany, in which also ap- 
peared a valuable paper in 1875 on the plants of the county. 
The following are the principal sources from which the informa- 
tion given in the following pages has been in the main collated :— 
Flra Bedfordiensis, by Charles Abbot, M.A., F.L.S. (1798), abbreviated (Abbot) ; Plant Records of 
J. McLaren of Cardington ; Plant Records of William Hillhouse, F.L.S., 1875 and 1876 ; List of the 
Wild Flowers of South Bedfordshire ; also a List of Plants observed in North Beds, but at that time unknown in 
South Beds, by James Saunders, 1881, abbreviated (J.S.) ; Bedfordshire Plant List, by J. Saunders and 
A. Ransom (1882) ; ‘The Wild Flowers of Bedfordshire’ (List published in the Luton Advertiser), by 
James Saunders (1900); Plant Records by Charles Crouch, up to 1901 ; Plant Lists collated, with 
additions by local observers, and noted by the botanical secretaries to the Beds Natural History Society, 
by J. Hamson, 1886 to 1901 ; various Herbaria referred to in the lists; Records of Musci, Characez, 
Hepatice and Mycetozoa, by James Saunders ; Hymenomycetes and other fungi, by J. Hamson, 1885 
to 1901, who has also made a collection of Mosses which, with the records by Dr. S. Hoppus Adams, 
mostly refer to the northern division ; Records of Flowering Plants noticed by G. Claridge Druce, 
abbreviated (Druce). 
THE RIVER DRAINAGE AS A BASIS FOR THE DIVISION OF THE 
COUNTY INTO BOTANICAL DISTRICTS 
In the lists of the Flora of the various British counties which have 
been published during the latter part of the nineteenth century, it has been 
the almost universal custom to select the river drainage of each county 
as a means of subdividing it into districts, thereby showing the plant 
distribution in a more scientific manner, and enabling the student of 
phyto-geography to more easily compile a flora of a river basin which 
might be contained in several counties. There is no doubt such a plan 
possesses considerable advantages, but it also presents difficulties, and 
these are especially felt when the water partings are obscure, but they 
are not greater or indeed so formidable as those which are met with if 
the boundaries were made conterminous with a geological stratum or a 
surface soil. Therefore in order to bring the county into line with those 
of its neighbours which have a published flora, a plan is here suggested 
for. dividing Bedfordshire into districts based upon its drainage, which 
shall as far as possible be uniform with those adopted for the counties 
of Herts, Buckingham, and Northants. Bedfordshire is contained in 
the two great basins of the Ouse and Thames, but by far the larger 
portion belongs to the former river, which has a most erratic course 
through the county and forms its western border for about three miles ; 
it has a tributary in the south-west in the Ouzel, and a considerable 
feeder in the Ivel with its tributaries the Hiz and Flitt. In the north- 
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