88 
NATURE NOTES. 
Ireland, and possibly of E. ciliaris in Cornwall, and for that of 
Trichomanes radicans in the south-west of Ireland. I never saw 
it there, but I was very familiar with it in all the moister West 
Indian Islands, and from thence I can well believe the Gulf 
Stream may have brought it to the shores of Western Europe. 
(By the way, how does Ptcris aquilina find its way into the Isle 
of St. Lucia ; there I have gathered it in tropicalised form ? It 
surely cannot have got there by a reverse action of the Gulf 
Stream from us.) 
(4) Introduction by human agency. — Possibly a sufficient explana- 
tion of some of our rarities, but of very few. Anyone who has 
studied the history of casually introduced plants must have 
observed how Nature seems to set her face against any of these 
interferences with her arrangements, to say nothing of the 
entire absence of motive in almost every instance on the part 
of the supposed introducer. I may add that experiments I have 
myself tried of naturalising wild plants, even those of their own 
neighbourhood, not in the garden, but in neighbouring copses 
and hedgerows, have almost invariably, sooner or later, proved 
failures. The introductions are overpowered in the struggle 
for existence by the denizens of the locality. 
So I give it up, and leave it to wiser heads to account for the 
distribution of rare plants. I merely venture to suggest that 
much information is still to be desired ; that it would be of great 
interest, and probable utility, to ascertain exactly how near, and 
at how many different spots, our rare plants are approached by 
their congeners on the continent of Europe or elsewhere. I 
further suggest that the “ Cybele Britannica ” should be well 
kept up to date, i.e., every new discovery of a rare plant in a 
fresh locality should be carefully registered, and above all things 
that all true lovers of plant-nature should bind themselves by a 
rigid vow^never to purchase a British plant of a dealer ; but by 
every means in their power should endeavour to stamp out the 
unholy traffic. 
J. Mitchinson (Bishop). 
[The suggestion made by Bishop Mitchinson as to posting the Cybele Britannica 
up to date has been already carried out by Mr. Arthur Bennett, of Croydon, one of 
our best British critical botanists, and the highest authority on some eminently 
difficult genera. Mr. Bennett has undertaken this task at the request of Mr. J. G. 
Baker and the late Rev. W. W. Newbould, the editors of the posthumous edition 
of H. C. Watson's Topographical Botany. Two or three years must elapse before 
we can expect another edition of the indispensable London Catalogue, now edited 
by Mr. F. J. Hanbury, in which a summary of the results of Mr. Bennett’s labours 
will be given. Meanwhile he has very kindly promised that the information he 
has collected will be at the service of those readers of Nature Notes who are 
desirous of being informed as to special points of distribution. 
We feel quite sure that both Bishop Mitchinson and Mr. Bennett would 
deprecate as grievous in the extreme the possibility of any information given by 
them being used for the purpose of further diminishing the stock of plants already 
rarely distributed. The Bishop in a private letter, from which he has allowed us 
to print an extract, says, in answer to a suggestion made by a very faint-hearted or 
very cynical Selbornian, who seemed to fear that the enumeration of rare plants 
