Short Notes and Queries. 



91 



Altitude to which Luzula spicata descends. — Mr. F. A. Lees is, I 

 think, greatly mistaken in sui3posing {Naturalist, p. 69) that Luzula 

 spicata does not, in Britain, descend below 2,800 feet. In the " Students' 

 Flora " it is said to grow as low as 1000 feet, and I have an impression 

 that I have seen it (though I cannot at present say where) at not much 

 above that altitude. In Perthshire I have not seen it much lower than 

 2,400 feet. —F. Buchanan White, Perth, 3rd Dec. 



Bryological Notes. — In recent numbers of the Naturalist Mr. White- 

 head makes very interesting explanations regarding the discovery of 

 Seligeria tristicha in England. Schimper's statements in the last edition 

 of the Synopsis, with regard to the British localities of this species, are 

 rather curious when compared and analysed. First of all he states that 

 the plant is rare in England and Scotland — a general statement which is 

 quite satisfactory. At the end of the Synopsis, in the pages devoted to 

 new localities for some rare mosses, he states that the plant had been 

 gathered at Castleton by Mr. Whitehead, and at Blair Athole by Miss 

 Mclnroy in 1860. Notwithstanding Mr. Whitehead's explanation in the 

 last number of the Naturalist, it seems to me still very doubtful whether 

 the plant occurs at Castleton ; and with regard to the Blair Athole 

 locality, the date of the discovery of the plant there as not correct. It 

 shouldjbe 1858, not 1860. I pointed this out in one of the earlier num- 

 bers of Grevillea, and I would not have noticed it here had it not been 

 that Dr. Lees in a late number of the Naturalist accepts Schimper's date 

 without suspicion, and that the error is likely to be accepted by others. 

 Mr. Whitehead refers to several other mistakes in the Synopsis. For 

 these unfortunately one has not long to search, for they are neither few 

 nor far between. Some of them are amusing mis-translations. For 

 example, under Fottia crinita, Wilson in his Bryologia gives localities for 

 the plant, and dates when discovered or gathered — thus, " East coast of 

 Angusshire, between Montrose and Redhead, 1827-8, also on the coast 

 of Fifeshire, Thomas Drummond. Near Aberdeen, Dr. G. Dickie." 

 This appears in the Synopsis thus : — " On the east coast of Angusshire, 

 between Montrose and Bedhead, 1827 (Wilson). On the shores of Fife- 

 shire, near Aberdeen, Dr. G. Dickie." This is a mis-translation almost as 

 remarkable as that^by Bridel, in which he supposes that the name of the 

 gentleman on whose property Grimmia unicolor was discovered in Clova, 

 is the name of the discoverer of the plant. Hardly any one, within the 

 last dozen years, has been a more enthusiastic and successful worker 

 among the mosses of the south of England than Mr. E. M. Holmes, late 

 of Plymouth, and now of London ; and it might have been expected that 

 he would have been mentioned by Schimper in connection with some of 

 the discoveries of species new to Britain or to science ; but no — I do not 

 at present remember if his name occurs in the Synopsis, We have, under 

 Bidymodon sinuosus, ^'Plymouth, Mr. Hunt"; under TricJwstomum 

 littorale we have Plymouth, Mr. Hunt," again. Mr, Holmes was the 

 first to gather these and other important mosses near Plymouth, and 



