190 NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
BOTANY.
Two Rare Essex Plants.—Peucedanum officinale, Linn (Hog's Fennel"
or "Sulphur-weed.") This very rare plant which has been noticed only in
certain stations in the marshes of Essex and Kent, and in the Channel Islands,
is recorded in Gibson's Flora of Essex as growing in a field near the Tower-
lane, Walton-on-the-Naze, and by the Blackwater near Beaumont. But I
never succeeded in finding it until the summer of 1896, when Mr. R. S.
Standen told me that he had noticed it as fairly plentiful at Thorpe-le-Soken.
Frankenia laevis, Linn. ("Smooth Sea-Heath.") I had frequently searched for
this rare plant in the stations given by Gibson, but without success. This
summer I visited the locality at Walton-on-Naze with Mr. Standen, and we
were fortunate enough to find the. plant. Later in the year Miss Lily
Grant-Duff found several fine patches growing in a new locality between
Clacton and Brightlingsea.
The above finds are worth recording, I think, because it is satisfactory to
know that these Essex rarities are still well established, and also because the
fact that in each case they were observed at places several miles from the
localities previously known, would seem to show that they are probably more
widely distributed than was suspected previously. In fact my experience
leads me to believe that rare plants are, as a rule, spread over a wider area
than published records would seem to indicate, and that a search through the
districts in the neighbourhood of the known stations, would often prove this
to be the case. J. C. Shenstone, Colchester.
CRYPTOGAMIA.
Essex Characeae.—The records of stations for Characeae in Essex are
so few in number, that the following may be of interest ;—In an old pond on
Doddinghurst Farm, about four miles from the railway station, Brent-
wood, in September, 1894, I found growing in abundance Chara fragilis,
Desv.; Chara vulgaris, Linn.; and Nitella opaca, Ag. These plants were
kindly identified for me by Mr. Arthur Bennett, F.L.S. In 1891 I noticed a
few plants of Chara foetida, A. Br. [? a form of C. vulgaris, L., Ed.] growing
in a ditch on Mr. Billups' farm, at Canning Town. This locality has since
been built over. William Allen, 10, Barking Road, Canning Town.
Cynophallus caninus, Fr., in Epping Forest.—At a Fungus Hunt
carried on by a small party of the Toynbee Natural History Society on
Saturday October 2nd, one of the Members found a specimen of Cynophallus
caninus, Fr., in Bury Wood. It belongs to the Phalloidei, and is allied to the
"Stink-horn" (Phallus impudicus) but is without its unpleasant odour. I
communicated with Mr. George Massee, F.L.S., of Kew, and in his reply he
says "the pretty little Cynophallus is not common anywhere, and every
authenticated locality ought to be recorded." Would you therefore kindly
note this gathering in the Essex Naturalist ?—Robert Paulson, Hon.
Sec. T.N.H.S. [Several specimens of the Cynophallus were found by Mr. E.
M. Holmes, F.L.S., at our Fungus Meeting on November 21st, 1896, in the
Forest near Hale End, and on two other occasions it has been found, but it
is certainly very rare with us. See Essex Nat., vol. ix., p. 250. Ed.]