30 
FIFTY YEARS OF BOTANY IN BRISTOL. 
R. cricetorum, and Hieracium rubiginosum to the late Rev. 
Augustin Ley of Ross ; Atriplex laciniata and Polygonum Raii to 
the Rev. E. S. Marshall, of West Monkton ; Cyperus fuscus to 
Mr. S. J. Coley, of Stroud ; Cladium Mariscus to Mr. H. Corder, of 
Bridgwater ; Carex montana to the Rev. E. F. Linton, then of 
Bournemouth ; Carex depawberata to Mr. H. W. Pugsley, of 
Wimbledon ; and Eriophorum latifolium to Mr. C. E. Salmon, of 
Reigate. 
Although the tale of the local flora may owe its numerical 
superiority in some measure to outside sources of information, 
yet in regard to our own people it can be justly said that the 
study of plant life is now more popular than at any former period 
in the Society's career ; so that a kind of continuous stock-taking 
is going on amid our vegetation. A good deal of this present 
activity may be traced to the influence of a Botanical Club founded 
in 1903 by the late Mr. George Brebner, under the wing of the 
University College of that date. Succeeding Lecturers in Botany 
continue to hold the presidency, and Miss I. M. Roper, a member 
of our Society, and its President in this Jubilee year, has been 
secretary of the Club from the beginning. Her personality and 
persistence in getting the best out of each individual member are 
vital to the Club's prosperity. The informality of club-procedure 
is attractive to those persons, and they are many, who find they 
profit more by chatting over their gatherings round a table than 
by attending methodical lectures. Not only vascular plants but 
bryophytes and fungi make up the ' ' exhibits ' ' discussed at the 
club meetings, and a number of interesting facts have been brought 
to notice in this way. 
The speeding-up of local phyto-geography has been manifested 
also of late years by the publication of the Flora of Somerset by the 
late Rev. R. P. Murray, who adopted the records of Bristol botanists 
for the northern portion of the county ; and of a Monograph of 
British Violets by Mrs. E. S. Gregory. The author's special study 
of this delightful but decidedly intricate genus had its beginning 
in North Somerset while she resided at Weston-super-Mare ; and 
much of the material on which she worked was obtained from 
w r oods and hedgebanks within the Bristol district. A rare know- 
ledge of the details of the subject are here displayed so clearly 
that few could fail to find what might be needed in making a 
determination. In a paragraph of her preface Mrs. Gregory 
speaks of excursions long ago with the late Mr. David Fry and 
the present writer, and remembers "our walks and talks on the 
hill-sides and peat moors of Somerset, searching for that which 
meant more to us than gold, silver or precious stones." Yes, 
doubtless we all realise that though the rambles we once enjoyed 
with old friends, and the scenes we witnessed together, may in 
after years become obscured and colourless, thought revives them 
and awakened memory illumines them again. Before leaving the 
district Mrs. Gregory made out for us a number of Violet hybrids 
