QUERIES IN LOCAL TOPOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 253 
the barren spots it occupies in the Plym valley, we only get at 
something like an answer to one query connected with its local 
distribution. We have still to ask, How comes it to be limited to 
spots at or within half a mile of the quarries % It is not now known 
elsewhere in Devon, neither in Cornwall. So small and insignifi- 
cant a species, of no known use, would not have been designedly 
brought to the quarries or their neighbourhood, neither is it very 
likely to have been so accidentally, taking into account its absence 
from a vast extent of country around. Possibly in it we have a 
species, anciently of more extended distribution in this part of 
England, now driven to a very circumscribed area by competitors 
better suited to flourish under surrounding conditions — an area 
where violent competition is impossible from the fact that few other 
species could exist. 
In the London Catalogue of British Plants both the typical 
Sedum refiexum, L., and the var. albescens are inserted ; but 
the names appear in italic letters, to mark non-acceptance or 
suspicion of them, on the part of the author, as indigenous plants. 
However, there is good ground for considering the albescens a 
true native of the neighbourhood of Torquay, where it appears 
associated with Helianthemum polifolium, Pers., and some other 
rare and striking species. The Eev. W. Moyle Eogers speaks of it 
as growing "all round Torbay in great quantity," and, moreover, 
observes, " The extraordinary abundance of the Stonecrop at Berry 
Head, and on all rocky places near Torquay, is so remarkable that 
I do not see how its claim to be considered a native plant can be 
reasonably questioned." Mr. Stewart in his Flora of Torquay 
has most strangely ignored this Sedum altogether. Mr. J. G. Baker 
in his account of the " Sedums of the rupestre group in the Gar- 
dener's Chronicle " accepts it as an English species by reason of its 
occurrence on dry banks at Mildenhall, in Suffolk, and " on rocks 
at Babbacombe, near Torquay." Its precise range in the country 
about Torquay should be ascertained, and it should also be sought 
for in other warm portions of South Devon, especially as there is a 
possibility it may have been mistaken at some places for the typical 
S. refiexum. This, I think, naturalized only in the spots where I 
have hitherto found it in Devon and Cornwall ; so whilst I would 
let the name " refiexum " still stand in the London Catalogue in 
italic letters, I would change that of var. b. "albescens" into 
ordinary type. 
VOL. VIII. R 
