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towards aquatica, under which Dr. Druce placed it in his Flora of 
Berkshire. In cultivation, however, those who are commercially 
interested in the production of essential oils for use in medicine 
or perfumery have carefully selected the plants whose flowering 
tops and branches proved richest in their yield, and these of 
course are propagated and multiplied solely by their stolons. 
Such experimental selection is stated to be of far more import- 
ance in culture than soil or climate. Some of the results obtained 
are peculiar and surprising. In their elaborate Etude Botanique 
des Menthes Cidtivees (Grasse, 1911) the brothers Camus state that 
selected strains of hybrid Mints will often show the habit of one 
parent with the inflorescence and floral organs of the other; and 
sometimes the inflorescence on the main stem does not match 
those on the secondary axes. In illustration they give a beautiful 
drawing of a choice form in cultivation at Grasse, “ Mentha 
piperita var. sativa, f. rubescens,” that has on the primary axis the 
indubitable spike of M. viridis, while the overtopping lateral 
branches bear the round heads of M. aquatica ! Has such an 
occurrence ever been observed among wild plants 1 — Jas. W. 
White. 
M. aquatica x arvensis ( sativa Linn.; rivalis Wats.). Marshy 
spring-head at Walton-in-Gordano, N. Somerset, Aug. 17, 1925. 
At the spot where this plant was gathered several other Mints 
have been known during the last forty years; always in small 
quantity and at uncertain intervals according to the state of the 
ground. There has been no record of M. sativa until lately. 
Now it has spread over an area as far exceeding that occupied by 
the other Mints as it outdoes them in luxuriance. We have 
here, apparently, a hybrid more robust and vigorous than either 
of its parents, becoming predominant and likely to supplant 
them in the locality where it originated. It can do so by means 
of a lusty vegetative system of stolons and suckers that secures 
a practically indefinite propagation independent of sexual organs 
that may be undeveloped and infertile. — Jas. W. White. Plants 
labelled rivalis I like to see possessing bracts all leaf-like 
(scarcely diminishing in size upwards) and with all the flower 
whorls separated. Some of Mr. White’s specimens have the 
bracts diminishing in size considerably at the apex, and the 
whorls collected (practically) into a spike, thus coming, one would 
suggest, under paludosa. — C. E. Salmon. 
M. aquatica x arvensis ( sativa Linn.), var. acutifolia (Sm.). 
Cult, from the K. Medway, Nettlestead, Kent, v.c. 16. J. E. 
Smith had only a specimen from Miller’s herbarium, and another 
