BRISTOL BOTANY, I9IO. 27 
All these have ceased a long way lower down ; and the zone of 
Salicornias cannot thrive so far from the open sea. 
The preceding notes have entirely related to Gloucestershire 
botany, but the southern division of the Bristol district has been 
by no means neglected. Indeed, there could not be the slightest 
excuse for so doing, seeing that to many of us, all things con- 
sidered, there is no country like that of Somerset, wherein the 
surface features are so varied and delightful, and the production 
of good plants so bountifully liberal. 
One or two of the most interesting items among our records 
for 1910 resulted from a Spring day’s ramble, by Mr. Bucknall 
and myself, from Twerton, by Englishcombe and Duncorn Hill, 
to the village of Dunkerton, where the swiftly flowing Cam, a 
pleasant brook beloved of anglers, passes on its picturesque course 
to Midford and the Avon. Our local wealth in Geraniacece was 
lavishly represented on hedge-banks of the sunken lanes by four 
uncommon species — pyrenaicum^ rotund ifolhim^ lucidum^ and 
columhinum ; and a woodland swamp below the Wansdyke dis- 
played an abundance of the scarce and handsome sedge, Scirpus 
sylvaticus. The tulip fields near Combe Hay were, as usual, 
flowerless : not one plant among the hundreds showed a sign of 
having blossomed. With great labour two bulbs were raised from 
their clayey bed with a view to their proving fertile in the garden 
at home. Curiously enough, we found that each of these was 
concealing a bud closely sheathed below the surface, to be developed, 
it may be, next April. 
Much of the old disused coal canal has been obliterated in 
constructing a new railway from Camerton. There is, however, 
a portion still containing water, and from this my friend raked 
up a Chara ( C. contraria), previously unknown in the district or 
in the county of Somerset. In the shallows, where exposed to 
full sunshine, the plant was full of fruit : longer in stems, darker 
in tint, and less fertile in a deeper shaded pool. Not far off, near 
the Radstock Road, but not in very close association, we got new 
localities for Saponaria, Melissa, the Periwinkle, and the Leopard’s 
Bane (Doronicum Pardalianches) ; all as “ wild ” as they ever are 
in this country, but of course at some period they must have 
escaped from cultivation. When returning along the Wellsway, 
some three miles out of Bath, a fine patch of colour on the border 
of a field introduced us to a new variety of Winter-cress (Barharea 
vulgaris). This plant has leaves diflPering markedly from type in 
the shape of the terminal lobe, and length of the linear lateral 
ones, thus taking a step or two towards B. intermedia. Surmising 
that it might be the var. transiens^ I got a supply in fruit some 
weeks later, and on a good example being submitted to Mr. 
Claridge Druce, he agreed that it was his variety so named in 
the Flora of Berkshire. 
