THE DISTRIBUTION - OF EUPHRASIA IN CORNWALL 
Most of the Cornish plants are small-flowered forms ; typically large- 
flowered plants are scarce, and a proportion of these have violet- 
purple corollas ; but all agree in habit and in the dense clothing of 
long flexuous glandular hairs. 
Davey (FI. Cornwall) subdivides the county into eight districts. 
Under E. gracilis he gives localities in each of the four West Corn¬ 
wall districts and in the two westernmost districts of East Cornwall, 
leaving the plant unrecorded for the Tamar Valley. E. Rostkoviana , 
on the other hand, is locally plentiful in all the East Cornwall dis¬ 
tricts, but scarcer in West Cornwall, and not recorded at all from the 
Land’s End area (District 8). Except for a single locality in the 
south-east of the county all the recorded stations for E. Vigursii are 
in district 5, a strip of land thirty-five miles in length, ancl nowhere 
more than six in width, extending along the coast from Padstow to 
Hayle and bounded inland by the watershed. In this district 
E. Rostkoviana is, I believe, a very rare plant. 
The coastal range of E. occidentalis is difficult to understand. 
The species is frequent all round the Cornish coast from Bude to 
Looe, and sometimes occurs two miles or more inland. At Polperro 
it grows freely with thyme and short grass on dry slopes above the 
cliffs, and more sparingly in grass land some distance inland. At 
Holywell Bay near Newquay the habitat is short turf on shell-sand 
near the beach, on St. Breock Downs heathy roadsides, and at 
Perranporth waste ground, the site of an old mine. Some of the 
Perranporth plants are unusually tall, approaching E. brevipila , but 
Mr. Bucknall’s final decision was E. occidentalis. The species evi¬ 
dently requires a light dry well-drained soil, but that does not suffi¬ 
ciently explain its coastal distribution. The var. prcecox Bucknall 
was described partly from plants collected at Polzeath and St. Minver, 
both near Padstow. I have seen similar plants on St. Breock Downs 
in the same part of the county ; Polperro examples are equally early- 
flowering and only slightly larger. 
The distribution of E. nemorosa (a fairly common plant in all 
the districts) is curiously suggestive of alien origin. Plants easily 
assignable to this species are usually collected from roadsides, waste 
places, and field-borders; see FI. Cornwall, p. 335, where Davey with 
his usual accuracy of observation says : “ Pastures, roadsides, waste 
places, &c.” Such plants are usually of procumbent habit, a tall 
erect bushy form occurs in moist ground, and moorland forms may be 
found which are near Kerneri. Plants referred to E. stricta have 
much the same distribution, but are scarcer, and up to the present 
are only known from the neighbourhood of Perranporth. 
The same suspicion of alien origin attaches to E. Kerneri , which 
in Cornwall is certainly not calcicolous, but grows in waste ground 
and gravelly roadsides in the Seaton Valley below Hessenford, and 
near the Cheesewring. An Eyebright from boggy ground near 
Perranporth has also been referred to this species. 
E. confusa var. albida , distinct in its leaf-form and in the opaque 
white of its small corollas, has been found in close turf on two of the 
upland granite areas of the county, viz., Bodmin Moors and Helman 
Tor area, and may vet be found on the granite of the Redruth and 
Land’s End districts. 
