48 
discovered by Mr. Bolton King, on the opposite shore, viz., 
Watson’s County 69 ; but, as far as could be judged, there 
is no reason for believing that the same plant does not occur 
on the northern side of Glencoin Beck, in which case it 
would be an additional county record for the plant, viz., 
Cumberland, County 70. At the time I collected it, I 
believed I was in Cumberland, and so did not prosecute the 
search further north. There are several spots between 
Glencoin Beck and Lyulph’s Tower, in which the true 
reptans is likely to occur. 
From what I know of the habitats of reptans it would 
seem to be partial to the edges of lakes, as in Loch Leven 
and Ullswater, in our own country, and on the margin of 
Lake Geneva, and other continental, Scandinavian, and 
North American fresh- water lakes. I shall not soon forget 
the first occasion (in July 1865) upon which I saw the 
plant in a living state, on the sandy margin of Hiterdals 
Yand in southern Norway; the sides of the lake were 
covered with a carpet of this little plant growing in 
felted masses over many acres, and fruiting most abundantly. 
On Ullswater it seemed to prefer the narrow area left 
between the ordinary full- water mark of the lake and its 
lower summer-level ; and the peculiarity of its distribution 
was that immediately beyond the full-water mark the 
typical erect form (var. suberectus of Syme) of Ranunculus 
Flammula grew in rank profusion. 
The interest was further heightened by the fact that the 
area between full- water and summer-level also produced 
some creeping forms of R. Flammula which were yet not 
true R. reptans, the chief differences from R. reptans con- 
sisting only of comparative characters, such as their larger 
flowers, their somewhat thicker first internodes, and their 
stronger primary roots — the nodal roots being absent; but 
the plants receded from R. Flammula by their creeping 
character and their filiform and arching internodes. 
