BOTANY intricate for the first time as a Bedfordshire plant, as well as several commoner forms. He has turned his attention also to the mosses, and more recently to the Mycetozoa. Mr. T. B. Blow of Welwyn, Herts, made some additions to the county flora which were published in the Report of the Botanical Record Club. He also found Phalaris phalaroides in the county. Mr. R. A. Pryor, F.L.S., the author of the Flora of Herts, added several plants to the county list including Vicia gracilis and Potamogeton pralongus. He also made a critical examination of Abbot's herbarium and published accounts of it in the Journal of Botany, in which also ap- peared a valuable paper in 1875 on the plants of the county. The following are the principal sources from which the informa- tion given in the following pages has been in the main collated : — Flora Bedfordiensis, by Charles Abbot, M.A., F.L.S. (1798), abbreviated (Abbot) ; Plant Records of J. McLaren of Cardington ; Plant Records of William Hillhouse, F.L.S., 1875 and 1876 ; List of the Wild Flowers of South Bedfordshire ; also a List of Plants observed in North Beds, but at that time unknown in South Beds, by James Saunders, 1881, abbreviated (J.S.) ; Bedfordshire Plant List, by J. Saunders and A. Ransom (1882) ; 'The Wild Flowers of Bedfordshire' (List published in the Luton Advertiser), by James Saunders (1900) ; Plant Records by Charles Crouch, up to 1901 ; Plant Lists collated, with additions by local observers, and noted by the botanical secretaries to the Beds Natural History Society, by J. Hamson, 1886 to 1 901 ; various Herbaria referred to in the lists ; Records of Musci, Characeae, Hepaticae and Mycetozoa, by James Saunders ; Hymenomycetes and other fungi, by J. Hamson, 1885 to 1901, who has also made a collection of Mosses which, with the records by Dr. S. Hoppus Adams, mostly refer to the northern division ; Records of Flowering Plants noticed by G. Claridge Druce, abbreviated (Druce). THE RIVER DRAINAGE AS A BASIS FOR THE DIVISION OF THE COUNTY INTO BOTANICAL DISTRICTS In the lists of the Flora of the various British counties which have been published during the latter part of the nineteenth century, it has been the almost universal custom to select the river drainage of each county as a means of subdividing it into districts, thereby showing the plant distribution in a more scientific manner, and enabling the student of phyto-geography to more easily compile a flora of a river basin which might be contained in several counties. There is no doubt such a plan possesses considerable advantages, but it also presents difficulties, and these are especially felt when the water partings are obscure, but they are not greater or indeed so formidable as those which are met with if the boundaries were made conterminous with a geological stratum or a surface soil. Therefore in order to bring the county into line with those of its neighbours which have a published flora, a plan is here suggested for dividing Bedfordshire into districts based upon its drainage, which shall as far as possible be uniform with those adopted for the counties of Herts, Buckingham, and Northants. Bedfordshire is contained in the two great basins of the Ouse and Thames, but by far the larger portion belongs to the former river, which has a most erratic course through the county and forms its western border for about three miles ; it has a tributary in the south-west in the Ouzel, and a considerable feeder in the Ivel with its tributaries the Hiz and Flitt. In the north- 43
