414 
Phragmites  communis  Trin.,  var.  nigricans  Gren.  & 
Godr.  Weymouth,  Dorset,  v.c.  9,  Sept.  5,  1912 — E.  S. 
Marshall. 
Molinia  cccrulea  Moench,  var.  Upland  wood,  on  gravel 
and  sand  subsoil,  near  Norwich,  Norfolk,  v.c.  27,  Aug.  1912. 
_ F.  Long.  It  is  easy  to  make  ‘varieties’  out  of  these 
shade-grown  plants  ;  but  I  do  not  believe  in  them. — E.S.M. 
This  seems  to  answTer  to  the  var.  sylvestris  Schlect.  “Foliis 
latioribus,  panicula  viridescente  majore,  ramis  laxiusculis” ; 
=  Enodium  sylvaticum  Link. — A.B. 
Poa  alpina  L.,  var.  acutifolia  Druce  ?  Lochnagar,  S. 
Aberdeensh.,  v.c.  92,  July  1897.  I  sent  this  plant  to 
Mr.  A.  Bennett  when  I  collected  it  in  July  1897,  and  he 
considered  it  a  form  of  P.  alpina.  Mr.  G.  C.  Druce,  in  an  able 
paper  read  before  the  Linnean  Society  (see  J1 — Botany 
xxxvi,  pp.  421-429,  30  July,  1903),  goes  very  fully  into  the 
opinions  held  by  various  botanists  regarding  P.  laxa  and 
P.  stricta  of  the  British  Floras.  The  plants  sent  herewith 
were  all  gathered  indiscriminately  from  Balfour’s  stations, 
on  Lochnagar,  and  Mr.  Druce  has  admitted  a  plant  sent 
to  him  as  his  acutifolia.  For  my  own  part  I  see  very  little 
in  common  with  P.  alpina  in  these  plants,  unless  it  is  the 
leafless  sheaths  at  the  base.  Neither  the  leaf  nor  the 
ligule  is  that  of  any  form  of  P.  alpina  I  have  seen  either 
in  this  country  or  on  the  Dovrefjeld  in  Norway.  As  to 
the  glumes — the  plants  being  all  viviparous  no  great  stress 
can  be  placed  on  these  organs. — P.  Ewing.  The  altitude 
is  given  on  my  label  as  6750  feet — an  obvious  slip  for  3750. 
On  February  26,  1902,  Mr.  Harry  Fisher,  who  had  made  a 
special  study  of  this  genus  (more  particularly  the  alpine 
and  arctic  forms),  wrote  that  Mr.  F.  J.  Banbury’s  specimens, 
collected  at  the  same  time  as  mine,  were  “P.  laxa  Haenke, 
var.  vivipara,  probably  not  found  elsewhere.  This  plant 
has  nothing  to  do  with  P.  stricta  Lindeb.  ;  this  only  grows 
in  montane  Scandinavia.  All  the  so-called  stricta  in  the 
arctic  Floras  are  colpodea  Fr.,  which  is  nearer  cenisia  All., 
var.  arctica  (Br.).”  In  a  letter  of  the  same  date  he  added*. 
“The  arctic  so-called  stricta  is  a  little  nearer,  especially 
that  of  Spitsbergen.”  As  he  named  the  companion -plant 
with  normal  inflorescence  P.  laxa  Haenke,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  viviparous  one  is  a  mere  variant  of  the 
