RARE PLANTS IN BRITAIN. 
7i 
pleasure of seeing it growing (but not in flower) there this last 
summer. It was sparingly distributed where we found it, and 
being only in leaf was not very easy to detect amid the herbage, 
but I was told that it occurs more or less frequently all along 
the escarpment. Craig Breidden is a famous locality for rare 
plants. I gathered on it Lychnis Viscavia, much rarer, alas ! 
than it was some fifteen or twenty years ago ; Veronica hybrida, 
(which may also be seen in abundance on the Cefn Crags on the 
Elwy, not far from St. Asaph, and also on Orrne’s Head and 
adjoining limestone rocks, but in very few other localities), and 
Sedum Forsterianum, a well-marked form of S. rupestre , which I 
have never seen growing except on Craig Breidden. 
While on the subject of the genus Poteniilla, I shall mention 
a curious instance of the caprice of plant distribution in my 
own garden. I devote one choice little nook thereof to what 
we call the “ weedery,” i.e., to our choicer indigenous plants 
and ferns, which are not only of botanic interest (to say nothing 
of their beauty), but serve as pleasing mementoes of rambles, 
vasculum-on-back. Of British plants, though I have often 
looked for it, I never came upon Potcntilla argentea. Judge of 
my surprise and pleasure when in this border, about three 
years ago, a plant of this Potentilla unexpectedly made its ap- 
pearance. It has maintained its place there, and has since then 
bred a daughter plant. Where did it come from ? It is indeed 
a Leicestershire plant, but not (according to our own Leicester- 
shire flora) a denizen of my district. I had, a few years ago, a 
similar waif, not, however, so permanent, for it lived the year 
only with me, in the shape of Silcne italica. 
Let me now take you to the Cistacecv, which furnish good 
examples of capricious distribution. Helianthemum vulgave of 
course abounds wherever there is chalk or limestone, though 
not confined to these. H . cannm, a well-marked species, grows 
abundantly with the common form on the Great Orme’s 
Head, and is found in a few other English and Welsh localities; 
but H. guttatum is confined to the west side of Jersey, and PI. 
Bveweri to Anglesea ; Helianthemum polifolium I have myself 
gathered in fair abundance in one of its two English localities, 
Brean Down in Somerset. This is a bold mountain-limestone 
outlier jutting out into the Bristol Channel, near Weston-super- 
Mare. It is evidently here thoroughly at home, and means to 
hold possession, as I observed a large number of seedling plants 
among the older ones. 
J. Mitchinson (Bishop). 
{To be continued . ) 
