208 
which seem to differ from their normal types. In particular 
. . . forms of Carex” 
But only one page in the first brief Report was devoted to 
comments on a few of the plants contributed. Prof. J. W. 
Carr, then at Cambridge, is the only present member in 
the first list ; and we doubt if any others are alive in 1934 
except “ J. Percival, St. John’s College, Cambridge,” and 
Mr. R. F. Towndrow of Malvern. But the widow of Peter 
Ewing (also in the first list) has very kindly been a subscriber 
ever since her husband died in 1913. 
The second Annual Report gives a list of 28 members who 
together contributed no less than 4,754 specimens. And the 
first List of Desiderata appeared in that Report. The total 
of the next year, 4,971 sheets, was the largest contribution 
in the history of the Club. Among the contributors were 
Messrs. J. Percival, Lloyd Praeger and C. Waterfall, who 
are happily still living. And that year’s List of Members 
included the present Secretary, then a boy at Bootham 
School, York. 
The exchange was undertaken by the Secretary the two 
first years, but subsequently it was taken in turn by different 
members, P. Fox Lee acting in the winter of 1886-7, and he 
was followed by E. F. Linton and then Father Reader. By 
1890 the contributions had fallen to 1,775, but the next year 
4,158 was the number. 
During these fifty years there have not been more than 
about 226 members ; and some 120,000 sheets of specimens 
have been distributed : also many packets of seeds and 
fruits. In 1925 the late Dr. Druce said that “ during his 
term of office (24 years) something like 140,000 specimens 
had been distributed ” by the Botanical Soc. and Exch. 
Club of the British Isles ( Report for 1925, 937). One of the 
Watson Club’s revised Regulations reads : “ No plant should 
be gathered for exchange if by so doing there is risk of serious 
diminution in any locality. Some of the scarce Trefoils, 
Orchids, Lilies, Orobanches, Saxifrages, and other very rare 
plants growing in small quantity are totally forbidden.” 
Of the twenty-nine Distributors Messrs. E. S. and C. E. 
Salmon acted five times consecutively ; Reader four : W. R. 
Linton, J. E. Little, Miss I. M. Roper, and E. C. Wallace 
three times ; A. R. Waller, Wm. Bell, Wm. Barclay, W. R. 
Sherrin, and George Goode twice ; and the following eighteen 
