NUPHAR INTERMEDIA IN BRITAIN 



9 



from the common water lily; in both varieties, at least I consider them as such, the stigma 

 is entire when young, but becomes toothed as it grows older." H. C. Watson (1847) 

 commented upon this report as follows : "A specimen in my herbarium, from Sir W. C. 

 Trevelyan, appears to confirm this transformation, but Mr. Borrer has lately explained 

 that the Northumberland plant is not pumila, but a rather small variety of N. lutea. In 

 size of flower and leaf the specimen corresponds more closely with the Highland N. 

 pumila; while in the repand margin, the specimen is certainly more like N. lutea." 



Baker and Tate (1868), whose flora of Northumberland and Durham superseded 

 that of Winch, were also familiar with the Chartners Lough plant and the Wallington 

 transplants. They considered that the plant agreed with the N. intermedia of Ledebour, 

 but were led by the absence of N. pumila from the vicinity to dismiss the possibility that 

 it could have arisen from the hybridisation of N. lutea and N. pumila. 



Luckley (1893) gave a final report on Sir J. Trevelyan's transplant experiment, 

 contradicting Winch in declaring that the Chartners plant " discovered about 100 years 

 ago by Sir J. Trevelyan, was introduced into a pond at Wallington, where I saw it growing 

 during the lifetime of the late Sir W. C. Trevelyan Bart., without the plant having under- 

 gone any change." 



The Chartners plant has been assiduously collected by generations of British botanists, 

 and herbarium sheets of it exist in most of the larger herbaria. Three sheets of particular 

 interest are those of material collected by W. C. Trevelyan, the two incorporated in the 

 herbaria of Winch and H. C. Watson, whose comments are quoted above, and another 

 bearing Caspary's signature, dated 1856, declaring the specimen to be N. kalmiana of 

 Hooker's " Flora Scotica," or N. minima of Syme's " English Botany " (1825). Other 

 interesting sheets are those of material collected by Fraser Robinson in 1905. On one 

 of these, in the British Museum, there is a note which states that N. intermedia was the 

 only water lily present in Chartners Lough, where it was " still very abundant," and that 

 the lough itself appeared to show signs of drying out, being about half an acre in extent. 



Chartners Lough lies on the Wallington Moors at a height of c. 1,050 ft., about a 

 quarter of a mile from the isolated farm of Chartners. The appearance of the lough 

 today clearly differs little from that when Fraser Robinson's note was written, and the 

 area of open water is still about half an acre. The east bank is overhung by peat hags 

 and evidently erosion is actively in progress here, since the peat is severely undercut. It 

 seems that Chartners, like other small loughs in the neighbourhood, may actually be 

 migrating slowly eastwards (Smythe, 1930). On the west lies a small area of bog con- 

 taining Sphagnum recurvum P. Beauv., Oxycoccus palustris Pers., Polytrichum commune 

 Hedw., Carex rostrata Stokes and Eriophorum vaginatum L. At the margin of the lough 

 there is a narrow zone of reedswamp with Carex rostrata and Juncus effusus L., and Sphagnum 

 cuspidatum Hoffm. grows in the water. The greater part of the water surface is covered 

 by Nuphar plants. The lough and the neighbouring bog are enclosed by a bank of thick 

 peat, and at a slightly lower level, between the farm and the lough itself, there is a large 

 area of drier bog, much burnt over. 



The nearest other locality for a Nuphar species to Chartners is at Kimmer near 

 Eglingham, some 15 miles to the north-east, a locality mentioned by Winch for N. lutea. 

 In Winch's time there were several other localities for N. lutea within 20 miles of Chartners, 

 e.g. Wide Haugh near Dilston (18 miles S.S.W.), Prestwick Carr (18 miles S.S.E.) and 

 Sewing Shields (18 miles S.W.). N. lutea is now extinct in many of these localities due 

 to water pollution or drainage. 



The nearest stations for N. pumila today are in Stirlingshire and W. Perthshire, 

 some 85-90 miles to the north-west. N. intermedia is recorded in Dumfriesshire and 

 Lanarkshire, some 65 miles to the west. .. 



