obtained in the ordinary routine of applying for desiderata by checking their names in a 'London Catalogue.'

Error. Mr. Dennes informs me that through some mischance a part of the labels written for Sium latifolium, in 1847-8, were attached to specimens of Cicuta virosa. Those members who received specimens of the former, according to labels, should make sure that they have not got the rarer Cicuta instead. I think the specimens were from Norfolk.

Foreign Specimens. In concluding my notes on the Society's distribution of British plants in the the current year, I may append a recommendation that any of the members who desire foreign plants, European or exotic, should apply to me by post letter at an early date. Hitherto the foreign specimens have been labelled and distributed almost solely by myself. But I fear this must be the last year of my doing that troublesome work. And if I judge of the future by the past, few members will get any foreign plants after I cease to look to them. I should, however, observe that a year or a year and a half ago, Mr. Henfrey commenced to label a numerous and beautifully dried collection of United States plants; but I am not aware that any of these have yet been distributed to members, though many of them have been labelled by Mr. Henfrey for that purpose. Like many other specimens, these Americans remained for several years in the Society's rooms, unseen and unuseful. Indeed, it appears to have been the rule of conduct in Bedford Street to shut up foreign specimens in boxes and cupboards, useless to every body, until destroyed by insects. I have myself rescued and distributed a good number of them; but still many remain, doomed to destruction by vermin, without being of the smallest use to any body. A very large mass of foreign specimens has also been set aside, and is now stowed away in cupboards, ostensibly in order to constitute a general herbarium. But these are totally inaccessible for use and reference, and will probably be destroyed by insects in the lapse of time. The Botanical Society of London cannot command the pecuniary funds, or the skilled labour, which would be required to make a general herbarium of reference; and yet the exchanges and distributions have been much impeded by the unwise attempts to effect this and other objects, which there is neither money nor resident knowledge adequate to accomplish. I should recommend some five and twenty or fifty English botanists, really and selectly such, to form themselves into an exchanging club, apart from both Botanical Societies; eschewing herbaria, libraries, meetings for discussion, and such like

local taxes on time and purse, which only interfere with the one useful and general object mentioned. Tempora mutantur: the object for which scientific societies used to be instituted are now better effected by periodical literature, by travelling, by correspondence, and by exchanges. Collective libraries are still important; but we have one for botany at the Linnean Society, and cannot have one at the Botanical Society of London.

Thames Ditton, February, 1849.

HEWETT C. WATSON.

BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

Friday, March 2, 1849.-John Reynolds, Esq., Treasurer, in the chair.

A donation of British plants was announced from Mr. T. Westcombe.

Mr. E. Berry, of Barnsley, Yorkshire, was elected a corresponding member.

A paper was read from Mr. Arthur Henfrey, containing some remarks on the "Discrimination of Species." While estimating highly the value of minute inquiry into the conditions presented by plants, the author could not overlook the inconveniences that arise from hastily giving a specific value to peculiar forms. All the deductions of philosophical Botany depend upon the fixity of species, as the science of numbers does on the definite nature of units. If we admit transitions, we can only define a species as a particular abstract form, more or less completely realised in nature, under peculiar conditions, which we do not yet understand; but if, as is usually the case, we admit the fixity of species, we are bound to exercise sufficient care in our observations, to avoid raising accidental variations to this rank. In reference to M. Jordan's views, it was observed that he also regards the species as an absolute, and not an abstract form, but on this ground calls every tolerably constant variety a species. Mr. Henfrey considered that an important point was overlooked as to the nature of varieties. He regarded them all as abnormal conditions, depending upon the morphological and physiological relations of the different organs. Accordingly, he would take that as the true example of a species in the Phanerogamia, in which the seeds (the highest product) were most perfectly and abundantly produced, in a generally

healthy condition of the whole plant, and from such examples alone, where any doubt existed, should specific characters be drawn. In cultivation, a most important test in doubtful cases, the plants ought to be exposed to many different kinds of condition, otherwise a variety or abnormal form might be continued for a time by the very same influences which first produced it, while the varied conditions would afford the best means of judging of the relative constancy of characters, afforded by the different organs of the plant.-G. E. D.

On the Flowering of Plants. By HENRY BOYER, Esq.

In the 'Phytologist' for this month I read an interesting article on the "Dates of the Flowering of British Plants."

I send you a list of some of the plants I have found this year, with the dates, as it may tend somewhat further to illustrate the subject. The Corydalis claviculata is remarkably early; June and July are the months stated by Hooker and Babington for its flowering.

January 25. Mercurialis perennis and Primula vulgaris.

January 26. Viola odorata (not found by myself).

Occurrence of Sphærocarpus terrestris near Fakenham.
By GEORGE FITT, Esq.

BEING at Gately, five miles from hence, on Monday last, I examined a turnip-field which looked a likely place for Sphærocarpus terrestris to grow in, and to my great pleasure found it in abundance, and producing fruit. I have since examined fields within half a mile of this town, and with the like success. It is this season plentiful VOL. III.

3.s

amongst turnips, particularly Swedes; and the capsules most abundant.

Should any of your readers wish for specimens, I shall be happy to supply them, provided, of course, that the plant is in existence after the beginning of April, about which time it usually disappears. Dried specimens are scarcely worth examination, but I would supply them in default of fresh ones.

The early spring of 1846, when I before found this plant in fruit, was similarly mild to the present season, but more moist. The plant was then unusually abundant near Yarmouth, where it had been found for many years by Mr. Turner, but always barren.

GEORGE FITT.

Fakenham, March, 1849.

A Catalogue of the Plants growing wild in Hampshire, with occasional Notes and Observations on some of the more remarkable Species. By WILLIAM ARNOLD BROMFIELD, M.D., F.L.S., &c.

(Continued from page 439).

Artemisia Absinthium. In pastures, waste and stony places, on hedge-banks, by road-sides, and about farm-yards and villages in many parts of the Isle of Wight; abundantly. Salt ditch by the Vernon Hotel at Springfield, near Ryde, else almost unknown in this vicinity. Chalk-pit betwixt Yaverland and Brading, and a few plants on the northern slope of Bembridge Down, July 8, 1848, an extremely sequestered station. Plentiful and truly indigenous along the whole length of the Undercliff, in rough pastures and dry wastes, at Bonchurch, Ventnor, St. Lawrence, Bankend, &c. Profusely about Niton, as between Mount Cleve and the lighthouse (St. Catherine's), and in pasture ground beneath the cliff behind the Sand Rock Hotel. Everywhere along the road betwixt Niton and Blackgang, preferring rocky, arid places, the débris of the cliffs, and along the stone fences. In less certainly natural stations about farm-yards and villages, as at Yaverland, Kingston, Redway, Gottens, and many other places. I am not yet in a condition to state its frequency on the mainland, having received but few notices of it from correspondents; nor have I remarked it since I began to register the plants of the county gene

rally, about a year or two back. Andover; Mr. Wm. Whale. Fontley iron mills; Mr. W. L. Notcutt.

Artemisia vulgaris. Abundant on dry hedge-banks, in waste ground, thickets and borders of fields in most parts of the county and Isle of Wight. I found the mugwort extremely common about Montreal and Quebec, September, 1846, where it was perhaps originally introduced from Europe for medical or economical purposes, but has now quite the aspect of a native production of Lower Canada.

maritima. Vars. B. gallica and y. salina. Both forms very frequent in salt-marsh ground and muddy shores, both of the island and main. Shore near Quarr Abbey, sparingly. Shores of Brading Harbour here and there, as about St. Helen's, Carpenters, &c. Thomess Bay, King's Quay, and abundant in the salt marshes round Newtown and by the Yar. Near East Cowes. Frequent in Hayling Island, and shore betwixt Emsworth and Langstone in many places. Common, probably, along the entire Hampshire coast where it is low and muddy. Occurs for the most part in great abundance on its several stations, where it recommends itself to notice by the fine and powerful camphorated fragrance it gives out under the hasty tread of the least regardful of Nature's infinitely varied sources of delight and instruction to man. For myself, I much prefer the scent of this species to that of the common southernwood (A. Abrotanum), as purer or less contaminated by a certain bitterness which pervades the genus, and from which that old favourite of our English gardens is not absolutely free.

cærulescens. Sea-shores; a very doubtful, and now apparently extinct native of England, if it was ever really found in Britain. "At Portsmouth, by the Isle of Wight;" Gerarde. On the coast of Brading Harbour, near Broadstone; Mr. W. D. Snooke. This species has been introduced into the British Flora on the authority of Gerarde and of Tofield; but although the old herbalist mentions it as a native of the opposite coast of Hampshire (Portsmouth), he does not, as Sir James Smith would lead us to suppose, assign the Isle of Wight as its place of growth, an error which seems to have originated with Smith, and from his own to have been copied into our later British floras. Yet in Mr. Snooke's little work (see note, p. 437) here referred to, a specific locality is given for A. cærulescens within the island, but where I have sought it without success. Mr. S. cannot himself now account for its insertion in his Flora Vectiana,' and there can be little doubt but that to some error or inadvertence its announcement in that catalogue was owing. Gerarde (em., p. 1104)