THE NATURAL HISTORY OF STEEP HOLM. 
145 
ago, and it was only towards the end of our day that we came 
upon a small patch surviving on an almost inaccessible ledge on 
the face of a cliff. The flowers were, of course, past as it 
blossoms in April, but there were to be seen some fruits of two 
to five leathery follicles covered with soft down. It must be 
recorded with regret that this beautiful rarity is no longer to 
be found in other parts of the island. 
The Allium Ampelopsosum was not noticed, probably because 
it does not blossom before August, and its grass-like leaves can 
well be overlooked amongst the surrounding herbage. On the 
side facing the sea were clumps of Crithmum, and the white 
blossoms of the Cochlearia officinalis. The plants were all very 
small compared with those growing on the mainland about Kew- 
stoke, where the leaves are often a couple of inches in diameter. 
Amongst them was a variety of Plant ago coronopus first noticed 
on the Steep Holm in 1910 by Mr. F. N. Williams, and named 
at Kew var. Sabrince after the Severn Sea. The whole plant is 
much more woolly than the type, and the leaves wider with 
dentate margins rather than pinnatifid. Kentranthus, F ceniculum , 
and Conium showed amongst the dominant masses of Smyrnium 
in full bloom. Its large glossy leaves were badly infested with 
the parasitic Puccinia Smyrnii as noted by the Cardiff Naturalists 
nearly forty years before. Mr. Murray saw only the common lime- 
stone bramble, Rubus rusticanus, which is abundant, but a 
barren shoot of JR. pyramidalis , a bramble often to be met with 
on the mainland, was gathered on this occasion. On rocks leading 
up to the plateau were small plants of Poly podium, Asplenium 
Trichomanes , and A. Ruta-muraria ; and between the loose 
stones was Geranium Robertianum var. maritimum Bab. The 
gravel paths on the top are moss grown with here and there 
tiny plants of Geranium molle and the rarer Er odium maritimum. 
Sedum acre is abundant everywhere, on the rocks and on the 
ground. A large patch was different in appearance to the others, 
and in the opinion of Mr. G. Claridge Druce it corresponds 
with his var. Drucei. On the north side of the Island the cliffs 
rise perpendicularly from the sea, and on the ledges grow 
Lavatera arbor ea, patches of Statice maritima, and Silene 
maritima, the typical plant with purple veins on the sepals, 
together with the form having bladders of a pale greenish yellow 
without any markings, common on the Chesil Beach, Dorset. A 
small quantity of Limonium binervosum was noticed with 
pleasure, because it was seen on Steep Holm in July, 1773, by 
Sir Joseph Banks and his companion, Lightfoot, and is now lost 
from man}?- of its positions on the mainland through building 
operations. Amongst the longer herbage of the downland were 
small plants of the tiny Vicia lathyroides, only previously noted 
by Mr. Storrie in 1883. It was associated as is often the case 
with small plants of the more conspicuous V. an gusti folia. The 
remaining plants noticed were the same as other observers have 
recorded. 
