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AIRA FLEXUOSA, Weihe, IN ENGLAND.
By Hewett C. Watson, Esq.
The ' Journal of Botany ' has shown the occuiTcnce of this grass in
Scotland and Ireland ; and I can now add also to its habitats the
third division of our triple kingdom, by reporting the species from
North Hants. A single culm of it, without the root-leaves, has been
in ray herbarium upwards of a score of years, placed among my speci-
mens of Aira fexuosa. The label bears no date, and gives only the
long locality, " North Hants,—between Earnham and Farnborough,"
a line of way six or eight miles in extent. I walked with a friend
from the one to the other place, soon after the Southampton (now,
South-Western) Railway was in operation ; so the probable station of
the plant was somewhere about the present site of Aldershot Camp,
which now covers much of the intervening space.
On reading Mr. A. G. More's account of his new locality for the
plant, in Ireland, it seemed that Elect Pond would be a suitable
station for the gi-ass ; being an extensive pool of water, with adjacent
bog or swamp, and sitiiate only half-a-dozen miles westward from the
road between Eamham and Earnborough. Accordingly I proceeded
tliitlier, and at once came upon the grass, within five minutes after
leaving the railway at Eleet Station. It was there growing in the
swamp among the usual plants of wateiy bogs. Eurther from the
station, it w-as found under more easy conditions for access, being
plentiful within a few yards of the open water of the ' Pond,' on gTound
apparently submerged in winter, but then (September 9) left uncovered
by the sinking of the water-level in a dry summer. Its companions
were Eleocharis, Molinia, Myi-ica, Drosera, Carduus pratcjisis, with
other swamp-dwellers. I explain the locality thus fully by way of
suggestion to botanists to examine other similar situations next season,
and in any part of Britain or- Ireland. As might be expected, the
gi-ass was mostly past its prime ; but I secured examples enough to
supply every member of the Exchange Club next winter; with some
to spare, in case other botanists should care to apply to me for them.
Earlier in the season (say July or August) thousands of specimens
might have been obtained.
This A. t'Uffinosa is truly very like A. flexv.om. Its clain s to
VOL. VTI. [OCTOBER 1, 1809.] X