2 THE CRYPTOGAMIC FLORA OF KELVEDON
The other lists I have prepared from a thorough examination of
the specimens in his extensive herbarium (so far as they relate to the
county of Essex) and also from the copious notes in his own neat
hand-writing in the text-books he used. In numbers of cases two or
more gatherings of the same species were made in the same locality
at different dates ; but I have not considered it needful to give more
than one of these, and that always the earliest.
The number of cryptogams now recorded is as follows : Mosses,
160 species and 10 varieties; Hepaticae, 22 species; Lichens, 208
species and 141 varieties and forms2; Fungi, 136 species ; Seaweeds,
36 species ; Fresh-water Algae, 129 species : amounting in all to 842.
As regards the names and classification here adopted the mosses
and hepaticae follow the order of the second edition of the "London
Catalogue" (1880) ; the lichens, Leighton's "Lichen Flora," third
edition (1879) ; the fungi, Cooke's "Handbook of British Fungi"
(1871); the seaweeds, Harvey's "Manual of British Marine Algae"
(1849), and the remaining section Hassall's "History of the British
Fresh-water Algae (1845). In the last case I am well aware that
the nomenclature is in a great measure obsolete; but as the list
is mainly drawn up from marginal notes in Mr. Varenne's copy of
Hassall, I have not ventured upon any attempt to modernise it—
which indeed would have been a task presenting considerable diffi-
culty, and might have led to serious error.
Although some of the stations indicated in the lists lie beyond
the neighbourhood of Kelvedon, strictly so called, the great bulk of
the localities are situated in that region of the county of which
Kelvedon forms the centre, and therefore I trust that no very grave
inaccuracy has been committed in giving to this paper its present
title.
The cryptogams of Essex form only a portion, though naturally the
most important one, of Mr. Varenne's extensive botanical collections,
the whole of which are now in my possession. Wherever he went for
his annual outing he brought home stores of gatherings for future
-study. Dartmoor he knew well botanically, and his manuscript lists
of the mosses, hepaticae and lichens he collected there are very full
and valuable. West Cornwall he knew even better than Dartmoor ;
and during his repeated visits to Penzance it was my privilege to
accompany him in his rambles over the rugged carns and breezy
2 In the Rev. J. M. Crombie's paper on the "Lichen Flora of Epping Forest, and the
Causes affecting its Recent Diminution" (Trans. Essex Field Club, vol. iv., pp. 54-75), only
136 species and 28 "forms" of lichens are recorded from the forest districts.—Ed.