Jan., 1891. 
THE FLORA OF WARWICKSHIRE. 
3 
the present day. The best known botanists of past genera¬ 
tions who have collected within its bounds are Purton, With¬ 
ering, Perry, Bree, Bloxam, and Baxter. At Rugby School 
there has been a natural history society since 1867. A War¬ 
wickshire man, whose name is briefly mentioned in this 
sketch. Mr. Thomas Kirk, formerly of Coventry, has been for 
many years the leader of botany in New Zealand, and has 
accumulated full material for a new flora of that island, which 
we hope to see published, under Government auspices, before 
long. 
The plants of Britain, with very trifling exceptions, all 
inhabit the European Continent, but they are distributed over 
the Continent and our own island in a great variety of 
different ways. Out of the 532 plants which are spread 
throughout the whole length and breadth of Britain, Mr. 
Bagnall records for the county 501 ; out of 409 species which 
have their head quarters in the south of the island there are 
found in Warwickshire 285; out of 127 characteristically 
eastern species there are found in Warwickshire 31, and out of 
90 characteristically western species only 8; out of 201 
species which are characteristic of Scotland and the moun¬ 
tains of the North of England and Wales only 19 reach 
Warwickshire. 
It is a great convenience to have a full county flora like 
this printed in legible type, and yet not too thick a volume to 
be carried about in a great-coat pocket. This has been 
managed by careful contrivance in the present case, by 
employing a special kind of paper—firm, but yet so thin that 
564 pages occupy a thickness of only about an inch. It will 
make the mouths water of many of the writers of local floras, 
past and prospective, to hear that there is a region in England 
where they form a committee of twelve gentlemen to guarantee 
the author against pecuniary loss, and where they subscribe 
for 430 copies out of 500 before the book is printed. This is 
a state of things very creditable to the kindness and business 
capability of those who have planned and carried it out. 
In the way of corrections or criticisms upon points of 
detail I have very little to say. The numerical summary is 
not clear ; on page 466 Mr. Bagnall gives the number of 
Warwickshire plants (flowering plants and ferns) at 852; 
but on page 467 his natives, colonists, and denizens add 
up to 905, and the author does not explain how the discrep¬ 
ancy arises. The Baroarea of cultivated fields on page 18 
is probably B. intermedia; B. stricta is always a plant of 
riversides and ditches. Rubus dumetorum var. concinnus, as 
described in Lord de Tabley’s paper in the “ Journal of 
