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NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
Verbascum floccosum. Though this species (or variety) must have
been introduced into Essex comparatively recently, it has
evidently been flourishing in the spot where we found it for
several years, and seeing how large and handsome a plant it is,
and how conspicuous its blossoms are from even long distances,
it seems strange that it has been overlooked for so long.
Verbascum floccosum seems to be a form or variety of V.
pulverulentum (the "Hoary" or "Mealy Mullein") which is
principally, if not wholly, confined to Norfolk and Suffolk.
Many years ago I saw a lot of it in the Bury St. Edmund's
district.
Another stranger to us was a large plant of Senecio viscosus.
This had been previously found in one locality in the county,
near Epping, but like the mullein must be a recent introduction
into our neighbourhood, since, though the locality is difficult of
access, other explorers could not have failed to find it had it
been there for long. I do not care to indicate the precise spot near
Colchester where these plants are now growing, as so many other
rare and interesting species have disappeared from stations
where they were formerly found, and though it is well that
novelties and varieties should be recorded, it is also well to
guard against the risk of their speedy extermination.—W. H.
Harwood, Colchester, August 18th, 1907.
GEOLOGY.
Bones of Mammoth at Wrabness.—Early in the spring
of this year (1907), our member, Mr. H. Wilmer, C.E., and
myself were rambling along the southern (or Essex) bank of the
River Stour, endeavouring to ascertain whether or not any
"Red-Hills" exist on that part of the Essex coast, when we
were surprised to find on the shore, at a spot in the parish of
Wrabness, a number of bones of a species of Elephas.
The spot in question is on the eastern side of Wrabness Bay,
about a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards to the east of
Wrabness Sluice and of the road which comes down from Low
Farm to the shore close to the sluice. At the spot in question,
there is a small point or headland (not Wrabness Point, which
is over half-a-mile further east), forming a cliff fifteen or twenty
feet in height, consisting of sand and fine gravel resting on a
very stiff clay (probably redeposited London Clay), the surface