10 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



But all along the broken banks of suck rivers as the Teme 

 and Severn, on the crumbling sea coast, and anywhere 

 where land is accidentally broken, even after long periods 

 of rest, this plant can thrive and will probably appear. 

 Its seeds have an extraordinary vitality and a strange 

 patience. They germinate at the first opportunity. It 

 needs little proof to show that this weed has a wild home 

 on river banks, and as it was in any given place soon 

 choked out by encroaching meadow or forest, learned to 

 follow the shifting river bank, and so acquired a habit 

 which has enabled it to profit by man's advent. Less 

 brilliant, but as interesting, is another weed, the Orache 

 {Atriplev patula). Just above the dry remnants of sea- 

 weed that mark the utmost high-water line on some 

 shingly beach the glaucous or reddish leaves of this 

 outcast appear. Up the brackish marshes, even into 

 Widnes, where it finds a home and refuge in my garden, 

 and thrives in an atmosphere where vegetable competition 

 is not keen. It is a good type of the weeds probablv 

 maritime in origin. 



And with this I may group Matricaria inodora and 

 Spergularia rubra, both of which are interesting as having 

 a shore form and a cornfield form almost sufficiently 

 distinct to be called separate species. I might, perhaps, 

 add Convolvulus arvensis, whose congeners at least have 

 often distinct maritime predilections. 



Another cornfield weed of great interest is Viola 

 tricolor, the pretty, variable corn pansy whose gorgeous 

 northern and inconspicuous southern varieties, and its 

 close affinities to Alpine forms, make it more than pro- 

 bable that we should look to a mountain home for its 

 origin. 



Another plant frequently found in cultivated land, but 

 not specially preferring it, is the common coltsfoot, 



