Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/82

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A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE of the corn spurrey (S. sativa) was meant ; Carex montana, for which Abbot cites Leers, but Leers' C. montana is really C. ericetorum. The specimen in his herbarium is immature, but is probably C. pilulifera, and Abbot may well have been led astray by Linnaeus, since the C. montana of Linnaeus' Flora Suecica is correctly named, though the C. montana of the Species P/antarum is really C. pi/u/ifera. Galium pusillum, by which early British botanists meant the plant now identified with G. sylvestre of Pollich, is not that species but only a form of G. Mollugo. His G. erectum is also a form of G. Mollugo, L. Abbot's Cerastium pumilum is not the plant of Curtis but probably a form of C. semidecandrum, which is still plentiful in the localities he gives, and as we gather from his herbarium where C. semidecandrum is represented by another species. The Polypodium cristatum from Potton Marshes and Aspley Wood is not Lastrea cristata, but L. spinu/osa, the Callitriche autumnalis is C. hamulata ; the former plant is absent from the midlands, and his C. verna is probably C. obtusangula. The wild everlasting pea (Lathyrus latifolius), which he records from Haynes and Bromham, is, as his herbarium shows, only L. sy/vestris, which still occurs in the county, and sometimes with broader leaflets than those of the southern plant. His Galium spurium is really G. tricorne. His Veronica agrestis is V. po/ita, the grass Festuca fluitans is Glyceria pedicellata, Towns. Juncus sy/vaticus is represented by Luzula vemalis, DC. ; his Vicia lathyroides is really V. angustifolia, and Ervum tetraspermum is Vicia birsuta, Gray ; his Hieracium murorum is probably H. sciaphilum ; his Viola canina is V. Riviniana ; his Orchis latifolia is O. incarnata ; his Carex distans is C. binervis ; his C. panicea is represented by a specimen of C. remota ; and C. ccespitosa is C. Goodenowii. Mr. J. McLaren, formerly gardener to Mr. Whitbread at Southill Park, where his herbarium is preserved, was a careful investigator. The Rev. W. Crouch, sometime curate of Lidlington, seems to have made an extensive collection of plants between the years 1841 and 1846. His herbarium is in the possession of Mr. Charles Crouch of Ridgmont, himself for many years an industrious observer and re- corder. The Rev. W. W. Newbould, M.A., F.L.S., the well known botanist, occasionally visited the county, and has left some records which are quoted as the Newbould MS. He supplied a considerable number of records of Bedfordshire plants to "Topographical Botany. Mr. W. Hillhouse, Professor of Botany at Mason College, Bir- mingham, was formerly at the Bedford Modern School, and when there compiled a list of the county plants in which several appeared for the first time as Bedfordshire species. Mr. James Saunders, A.L.S., of Luton, has been one of the most assiduous workers in recent times at the flowering plants of Bedford- shire, of which he published a very complete list of species found in the south of the county in the Journal of Botany for 1883. He has also worked at the Characeae, of which he discovered the rare Tolypella 42