REPORT OF MEETINGS. 
45 
or energy weakens. Experience shows that rare species are often 
confined to extremely small areas dotted about in secluded localities. 
Not infrequently plants seem to be reduced to the verge of extinction 
by causes that vary and are ditficult to estimate. Their last lingering 
holds may long escape detection. In many cases they are brought to 
notice eventually more by accident than by design, for to them there 
are no guides. A square yard or two of rock on some unfrequented 
slope, a few feet of river bank where no footpath runs, a tiny bit of bog 
on a remote hillside, or, it may be, the margin of a little peaty pool 
among the heather of high moorland — any one of these may shelter all 
that remains within a whole county of some beautiful wild flower, 
grass, or sedge. Proportionate to the difficulties encountered — to the 
barren hours or days spent in hunting up such hiding places — and to 
the botanical value of the plants which they conceal, is the delight of 
a fortunate explorer when the unexpected meets his eye, and the 
satisfaction of a topographer who is enabled to fill some gap in his 
floral plan. 
Since our last Report was written the delight and satisfaction 
described above have descended upon us lavishly. Hardly anything 
has happened but the unexpected — the almost unhoped for ! Surprise 
has succeeded surprise in an astonishing sequence. Truly the botani- 
cal work done about Bristol during the past twelve-month is of the 
first order. Classified systematically the results run as follows : — 
Banunculus Lingua^ the rare Great Spearwort, distinguished by its 
tongue-like leaves, fine stature, and great golden flowers as big as 
crown-pieces, was unknown in the county of Gloucester until last June, 
when specimens were brought to a meeting of University College 
Botanical Club by Miss Brooks, the discoverer, who gathered them in 
the Boyd valley above Bitton. There, in a very wet swamp, concealed 
among osiers and rank aquatic vegetation, is an abundance of this 
beautiful buttercup, much more luxuriant than any I have met with 
elsewhere. 
Corydalis daviculata is another plant not previously noticed in 
Gloucestershire. A frail delicate species that is apparently dying out 
in the region around Bristol, for it can no longer be found at St. 
Stephen’s Hill. There survives, however, a small patch of it on a 
sandstone outcrop of the coal-measures, about nine miles north of the 
Exchange. 
Getim rivale. We now have two good stations for this in N. 
Somerset — between Hallatrow and Hinton Blewett in open pasture, and 
towards the “Blue Bowl” and Compton Martin in wet hedge-bottoms. 
Caruin Carvi^ the Caraway, is uncommon everywhere, and is usually 
a waste-ground casual resulting from kitchen refuse. As such it has 
appeared several years in succession in St. Philip’s Marsh. 
Galium erectum. There was but one other habitat known in West 
Gloucester before Mr. Bucknall and I found it to be abundant on a 
rocky slope not far from the village of Iron Acton. As a help in 
distinguishing this from G. Mollugo^ it should be remembered that the 
latter blooms at least three weeks later. The flowers of erectum are 
larger, and are borne upon ascending or erect pedicels and branches. 
