228 NOTES ON CERTAIN PLANTS IN WANSTEAD PARK.
specimens to our museums, conducting rambles, procuring new
members, subscribing to our funds, and taking part in our
Councils, have contributed each his or her share to the Club's,
well-being.
NOTES ON THE RECENT OCCURRENCE
OF CERTAIN PLANTS IN WANSTEAD PARK,
ESSEX.
By the Rev. A. G. MORRIS, BA.
[Read 29th October 1910.]
LAST winter much work was done in the matter of cleaning
out the Ornamental Waters in Wanstead Park. The mud
excavated from the bottom of the lake was deposited to a depth
of several feet over a considerable area of waste land in the
Park. Hoping to meet with some interesting botanical "finds"
on this new mud-stretch, I asked permission from the Superin-
tendent of Epping Forest to examine and collect specimens.
He courteously at once gave the required permission, and the
botanical results are of some interest. The most interesting
discovery undoubtedly was the finding of a couple of specimens
of the Potentilla norvegica, a Norwegian Potentilla which has not,
I believe, been found previously in this county, though it has
been found in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. At first my
thought was that seeds of it had been washed down the Roding
and so found their way into the lake. This suggestion I made to
a well-known botanist and member of the Linnaean Society, Dr.
F. N. Williams, and he thought it quite possible. In a note to
me he says : "Potentilla norvegica is a native of wet sandy places
in Europe. It is much cultivated in gardens, and readily estab-
lishes itself as an escape from cultivation. I think it is quite
possible that the River Roding may have carried the plant
along as a garden escape. I see that G. S. Gibson, Flora Essex
(supplementary notes) in Bot: Exchange Club Report, 1868,
queries the plant as introduced into Essex. It grows wild in
Norway, Denmark, and North Germany, but not in France or
Belgium."
The 9th Edition of Babington's Manual quotes P. nor-
vegica as "naturalised in Yorkshire and elsewhere." As it
may crop up in some other Essex locality, and as the usual