BACKHOUSE : TEESDALE BOTANY. 



13 



Station ' for it, on a wall at Low Leyton, Essex (at best an ' unsatis- 

 factory' locality), having been destroyed many years before. We 

 were only able to find three roots, so that it may well be called 

 ' very rare.' 



Some years later when crossing the moors alone, I found another 

 station for S. Hirculus. It was growing in vast profusion, covering, 

 more or less, an area probably as large as that of all the other 

 stations I have seen put together. No one, I believe, has visited 

 the locality since. I now know of nine stations for this plant in the 

 Teesdale district. Six out of the nine I have personally discovered. 



Senecio spatJmlcEfolius DC. is the last novelty which has 'turned 

 up' in this rich region. I detected it by the peculiar aspect of its 

 rosettes when out of flower, and brought roots home to prove. Aly 

 friend. Professor Babington, seems certain that it is the above-named 

 species, and that the Holyhead plant, which has long been known 

 under the name of Ciiieraria caiupestris v. maritima, is the same. 

 If so, it is a remarkably interesting illustration of the similarity 

 (in points doubtless 'well understood' by the plants themselves!) 

 of maritime 'littoral') and Alpine or sub-alpine climates. 



The 'Teesdale' plant, though growing at an elevation of 

 probably 1500 feet, cannot apparently exist, except upon a northern 

 slope! Though there is apparently no change in the soil or its 

 grassy covering, yet 'the moment' the slight roll of the hill 

 changes its aspect, the plant ceases altogether. The variation in the 

 inchne (to south or north) is so apparently trifling — both receiving 

 full sunshine — that the atmospheric difference must be subtle indeed ! 

 In 1 88 1, my sons again visited the locality of this plant, and 

 found that it was scattered over a considerable region where the 

 ^roir of the undulation was northerly. 



It may be interesting, in connexion with this subject, to mention 

 that, in eight instances out of the nine, where Saxifraga Hirculus 

 grows, it also affects a slight incline, having an aspect due north 

 or very nearly so. In one instance only the trend of the slope 

 is north-west. 



West Bank, York, 18. vi. 1884. 



Additions to the Dewsbury district-flora.— At the meeting of the 



Dewsbury Naturalists' Society, on the loth July, :\Ir. P. F. Lee, as botanical 

 recorder, reported the following additions to the flora of the district : — Brassica 

 nigra (black mustard), Rantmaitiis LenorinaJidi (the rarer fonii of the mud crow- 

 foot), Carex piliUifera (round-headed sedge), C. pallcsceiis (pale sedge), and 

 C. IcEvigata (smooth-stalked beak-sedge). At the same meeting, he gave a racy 

 address on 'insect-eating plants," illustrated by living specimens and microscopical 

 sections of the digestive process, glands, etc.— J. S. 



Aug. 1884. 



