256 Committee for the Study of British Vegetation. 
The members present at Liverpool will probably long remember 
the excellent series of communications on recent work. During 
the vacations of the year, every member has been actively engaged 
in out-door observations, and there was a natural curiosity to hear 
the latest results and to compare notes. The short reviews of 
recent work given by members were followed with keen interest. 
Messrs. Lloyd Praeger and Pethybridge (Dublin) exhibited their 
new map and gave a summary of their work during the past few 
years in the district South of Dublin (Proc. Roy. Irish Academy 
XXV., Dec. 1905). The map had arrived from the printer just in 
time for this meeting, and was examined with great interest as the 
first detailed map dealing with Irish vegetation, as well as the first 
. printed by the Ordnance Survey Department. The results have a 
further interest in that the authors frankly stated that they set out 
in a sceptical attitude as to the existence of plant associations. 
The new map has the additional value that the vegetation surveys, 
hitherto almost limited to the drier Eastern side of the British Isles, 
have now been carried into the moister Western regions. The new 
moorland types of vegetation designated Scirpus-mooi' and liaco- 
mitrium -moor respectively, are indications of the influence of con¬ 
ditions not found on the Eastern coasts; Mr. Lewis was able to 
confirm the wide occurrence of these in Western Scotland and the 
similarity between his photographs and the Irish ones was very 
striking. This is not the place to review this paper, but the dis¬ 
cussion which followed the summary at Liverpool shewed clearly 
how heartily the members welcomed the latest work of observers 
whose names are already well known in connection with Irish 
botany. A forecast of the next district to be dealt with was 
contained in Dr. Pethybridge’s description and field-maps of the 
maritime associations of the coast north of the Liffey estuary. 
This has many features in common with those observed by other 
members on the coasts of the English Channel and the Eastern 
coasts of Scotland and England. 
Mr. F. J. Lewis (Liverpool) gave a summary, with illustrations, 
of his recent work on the Peat Mosses of South-west Scotland 
(Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, Sept. 1905). To this he added his more 
recent observations on the Peat of North-west Scotland. The main 
features, which are strikingly uniform over the South-west area, 
are the occurrence of a lower-bed of Birch remains, a middle 
stratum with arctic Willows, etc., and an upper forest bed of Scots’ 
Pine or Birch. In North-west Scotland the lower Birch bed is 
frequently absent, and the upper forest beds are sometimes 
doubled. Between these layers of a drier forest or heath vegeta¬ 
tion, there are thick strata of remains which indicate wet bog 
conditions. This system of continuous investigations on peat bogs 
has already greatly advanced our knowledge of the composition of 
peat, and of the succession of vegetation on moors, while the 
bearing of the work on glacial theories is evident. 
Mr. C. E. Moss (Manchester) compared the vegetation of 
Somerset and Derby, two areas which he is now surveying. The 
Mountain Limestone of the Mendips and the Pennines presents a 
sequence of plant formations from the Ash woods of the valleys 
upwards through Hawthorn scrub and limestone grass pasture on 
the slopes, to a pasture with heath plants on the plateaux. The 
abundance of Ash with an almost complete absence of Oak on the 
